Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what recent assessment he has made of the size of the optoelectronics industry in the UK.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
Official statistics are not published to a sufficient level of detail to identify the size of the optoelectronics sector in the UK.
The Government does however work closely with both the Photonics Leadership Council and the Elect-Tech Council. The Council’s “UK Photonics: The Hidden Economic Engine” identifies the UK’s significant strengths in Photonics, including optoelectronics.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much funding has been allocated to the optoelectronics industry in the UK in each year for which figures are available.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
Our ambition is to increase total R&D investment to 2.4% of GDP by 2027, and 3% in the long term. Successive UK Governments have supported the principle that funding for basic research should be awarded through competitive processes on the basis of excellence and likely impact - as assessed through peer review.
UK Research and Innovation, a partner organisation of BEIS, primarily engages with industry through Innovate UK. The table below shows the amount committed by Innovate UK to projects involving optoelectronics in each of the last 5 years. These figures focus on funds to industry and, as such, exclude funding towards research-focused partners such as academics or charities.
Commitment Year | Grant Offered (Commitment) |
2014/15 | £3,530,324 |
2015/16 | £1,944,112 |
2016/17 | £3,676,222 |
2017/18 | £5,225,330 |
2018/19 | £822,952 |
Note: as this is committed funding the 2018/19 figures do not include where an offer letter has been sent but no agreement has yet been reached. As such this will not reflect the full amount of funding committed in that year.
Funding for research into optoelectronics is also provided by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent assessment he has made of trends in the level of investment in the automotive manufacturing industry in the UK relative to the EU average in the last 12 months.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The automotive manufacturing industry invested £3.6bn in business research and development in 2017, the latest year for which figures are available. This accounted for over 15% of all UK business research and development and is a record high for the sector. Unfortunately consistent data across EU countries are not available.
Automotive investment in business R&D has increased rapidly from 2010 when it stood at £1.2bn (an increase of 190% in nominal terms).
Figures for 2018 will be published by the ONS in November 2019, once finalised company accounts for the year are available.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, on how many occasions his Department has received representations from the UK Statistics Authority on his Department's presentation and use of statistics in each year since 2010.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
Details on the UK Statistics Authority’s interventions are published in the correspondence[1], publications[2], and issues log[3] sections of their website since 2010.
The Authority’s Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) also carries out regular assessments and systemic reviews, details of which can be found on the Authority’s website[4].
In September 2018, the Authority published the first annual summary of its interventions for the financial year 2017/18[5]. The report for 2018/19 will be published in autumn 2019.
[1] https://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence-list/
[2] https://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/publications-list/
[3] https://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/reports-and-correspondence/issues-log/
[4] https://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/osr/
[5] https://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/publication/annual-casework-review-20172018/
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much funding his Department has made available for renewable energy generation in each nation and region in the UK in each of the last seven years.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The Department does not collect regional funding data. However, the Government has spent a total of £30.7 billion in renewable electricity technologies since 2010. The table below shows how much was invested in each year, through the Renewable Obligation (RO), Feed in Tariff (FITS) and Contracts for Difference (CfD) schemes:
Cost (£m) | 2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 | Total over period |
RO | 1,285 | 1,458 | 1,991 | 2,599 | 3,114 | 3,743 | 4,511 | 5,371 |
|
FiTs | 14 | 151 | 506 | 691 | 866 | 1,110 | 1,284 | 1,375 |
|
CfDs |
|
|
|
|
|
| 92 | 544 |
|
CfD (admin) |
|
|
|
|
|
| 12 | 13 |
|
Total | 1,300 | 1,608 | 2,498 | 3,290 | 3,980 | 4,853 | 5,898 | 7,304 | 30,731 |
Renewables spending covered under the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme is published monthly and can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rhi-mechanism-for-budget-management-estimated-commitments.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 4 June 2019 to Question to 256956 on energy: consumers, what estimate he has made of the number of people on the Priority Services Register in each nation and region of the UK in each year for which data is available.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
This information is publicly available at:
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 4 June 2019 to Question 256956, how many people were registered on the priority services register in each ward in Denbighshire in each year for which figures are available.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
This is a matter for Ofgem who, as regulator, is responsible for collecting priority services register data from energy suppliers. Ofgem collect and publish this data on a national basis and do not hold data at ward level.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of the number of jobs in (a) the renewable energy sector and (b) any associated supply chain created in each nation and region in the UK in each of the past seven years.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The Office for National Statistics publishes data on the low carbon and renewable energy economy in the UK, including direct and indirect activity, employees and turnover. The latest report, “Low Carbon and Renewables Energy Economy, UK: 2017, was published on 31 January 2019.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/bulletins/finalestimates/2017
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of the energy generated by renewables in each (a) nation and (b) region of the UK in each of the last seven years.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The amount of renewable electricity generated in each of the last seven years, for each nation of the UK, is published in Energy Trends at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/789371/ET_6.1.xls
The amount of renewable electricity generated for each year from 2003 – 2017, in each region of the UK, is published in Regional Renewable Statistics at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/743830/Generation_of_electricity_from_renewable_sources__2003-2017.xls
Figures for 2018 will be published at the end of September 2019.
BEIS does not hold regional data for other types of renewable energy.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to promote awareness of Ofgem's priority services register.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
Ofgem requires energy companies to promote and maintain a Priority Services Register (PSR), to provide non-financial help to certain groups of vulnerable consumers. Ofgem is responsible for ensuring compliance with these requirements.
In 2016, Ofgem introduced new requirements that companies take all reasonable steps to identify customers who may benefit from PSR services and introduced a broad “Vulnerability Principle” in 2017, which clarifies that suppliers need to make an extra effort to identify and respond to the needs of consumers in vulnerable situations, which can help identify those who could benefit from PSR services.
The number of consumers on PSRs has risen from 1.7 million electricity and 1.4 million gas consumers in 2010, to nearly 6 million electricity and 4.8 million gas consumers in 2017. Ofgem publish information on energy company performance, available online at:
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/system/files/docs/2018/11/vulnerability_report_2018.pdf
Ofgem is also working to promote PSR data sharing between energy and water companies in England and Wales (with the customer’s consent) following a successful pilot in Spring 2018.