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 comparative assessment he has made of the cost of gas to British consumers relative to the cost to consumers in each of the other member states of the EU.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The Department is committed to regular and transparent reporting on the price of gas for UK consumers and currently publishes a price comparison with EU member states on a bi-annual basis. The latest statistical reports from this series are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/international-domestic-energy-prices
The UK has some of the lowest domestic gas prices in the EU. Average prices paid by consumers for the period January to June 2018 were the second lowest in the EU15 and were 31 per cent lower than the median average price.
Recent figures also show that gas prices for UK consumers has been consistently cheaper than the median average for all EU member states (EU28) since 2016 currently peaking at 15.5% cheaper in the first half of 2018.
These figures are for average domestic gas prices including taxes paid for by UK domestic consumers, with a consumption level of the EU’s definition of a ‘medium’ amount of gas per annum (5,557 – 55,557 kWh).
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 many civil servants in his Department have been seconded to (a) the Department for Exiting the European Union and (b) the Department for International Trade in each of the last three years.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
BEIS does not hold centrally the records of every Department loaned staff have joined. However, according to reports from BEIS’ two Shared Services providers during this period, the total number of BEIS staff loaned out in each year is as follows:
2016 – 47
2017 – 53
2018 – 48
2019 – 27
This data only reflects the loans fully recorded on Shared Services and so may not reflect all loans out of the Department.
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 amount of funding as a percentage of GDP that was allocated to research and development by (a) Government, (b) public sector organisations excluding local authorities and (c)the private sector in each of the last five years for which data is available.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The figures below are based those on the ONS release “Gross domestic expenditure on research and development, UK: 2017”
| 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 |
TOTAL3 | 1.61% | 1.65% | 1.58% | 1.61% | 1.63% | 1.65% | 1.67% | 1.69% |
Government | 0.19% | 0.18% | 0.17% | 0.20% | 0.19% | 0.19% | 0.18% | 0.18% |
Research Councils | 0.18% | 0.18% | 0.16% | 0.16% | 0.16% | 0.15% | 0.15% | 0.15% |
Higher Education Funding Councils | 0.14% | 0.14% | 0.13% | 0.13% | 0.12% | 0.12% | 0.11% | 0.11% |
Business Enterprise 3 | 0.71% | 0.75% | 0.74% | 0.74% | 0.77% | 0.82% | 0.88% | 0.91% |
Higher Education 1, 4 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.01% | 0.01% | 0.01% |
Private Non-Profit 2 | 0.08% | 0.08% | 0.08% | 0.08% | 0.08% | 0.08% | 0.08% | 0.09% |
Overseas | 0.30% | 0.31% | 0.30% | 0.30% | 0.30% | 0.28% | 0.26% | 0.24% |
1 Following further quality assurance of the flow of funding within the higher education sector it was decided to remove the element relating to funding between higher education establishments. |
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2 Prior to 2011 PNP data were estimated. From 2011 data has been collected from a biennial survey with non-survey years being estimated using data from survey years. |
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3 Estimates of launch investment loan repayments received by government from business have been removed following a review of how these payments should be reported. These loan repayments are in relation to loans given out in previous years and therefore should not be included in current totals of R&D expenditure. The total of loan repayments have been removed from the total funding by business and the UK total for 2013, and 2015, there were no repayments in 2014. In current prices the values removed were 2013 (£212 million) and 2015 (£112 million). |
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4 New higher education financial reporting standards starting on or after 1 January 2015 have resulted in significant changes in how financial performance is reported. This presents difficulties in comparing results from 2015 onwards with historical trends. |
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Please Note: |
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Differences may occur between totals and the sum of their independently rounded components. |
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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 the Government has allocated to research into (a) photonics and (b) optoelectronics in each (a) nation and (b) region of the UK in each year for which data is available.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funds high quality research and innovation for BEIS as part of the Government’s wider ambition to increase the UK’s total R&D investment to 2.4% of GDP by 2027. All proposals are assessed through peer review and funding is not usually ringfenced for particular research areas or topics.
Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) is the primary funder of these areas within UKRI. The table below summarises the value of all current grants from EPSRC, in research and training for the relevant research portfolios: Photonic Materials, Optoelectronic Devices and a combined figure for Optical Communications and Optical Devices and Subsystems.
Please note other research is being carried out in this area, both in other UKRI councils and outside of UKRI, but we are unable to determine the monetary value of this in the time allowed.
| Photonic Materials | Optoelectronic Devices and Circuits | Research into other Photonic Technology (Communications and Optical Devices) | |||
Year | Research | Training | Research | Training | Research | Training |
2018 | £ 65.78M | £ 19.43M | £ 51.92M | £ 5.76M | £48.21M | £12.71M |
2017 | £ 65.46M | £ 21.40M | £ 54.87M | £ 6.56M | £51.87M | £11.57M |
2016 | £ 60.29M | £ 18.74M | £ 48.24M | £ 6.63M | £48.97M | £10.67M |
My rt. hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in the Spring Statement an £81 million investment in a national Extreme Photonics Application Centre in Oxfordshire. In addition, EPSRC has confirmed continued funding for two existing Centres for Doctoral Training in ICT Photonics as well as investment in a new CDT which will contribute to this area
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 comparative assessment he has made of year on year trends in the level of business insolvencies in each of the last seven years.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
Official statistics covering company insolvencies are published quarterly, and include annual statistics on the number of company insolvencies in each of the last seven years. The latest figures, covering up to 2018Q4, are available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/insolvency-statistics-october-to-december-2018.
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 personal insolvencies in each local authority area in the UK in each year since 2014.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The Insolvency Service produces official statistics covering individual insolvencies by local authority area for each calendar year for England and Wales: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/individual-insolvencies-by-location-age-and-gender-england-and-wales-2017
The Accountant in Bankruptcy produces statistics covering individual insolvencies by local authority area for each financial year for Scotland: https://aib.gov.uk/about-aib/statistics-data/debt-solutions-local-authority
No statistics are available relating to individual insolvencies by local authority area in Northern Ireland.
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 total amount of public subsidy made available by Government for (a) renewables and (b) fossil fuels in each year for which data is available.
Answered by Claire Perry
Since 2010, the Government has invested £30.7 billion in renewable electricity technologies. 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 |
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FiTs | 14 | 151 | 506 | 691 | 866 | 1,110 | 1,284 | 1,375 |
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CfDs | 92 | 544 |
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CfD (admin) | 12 | 13 |
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Total | 1,300 | 1,608 | 2,498 | 3,290 | 3,980 | 4,853 | 5,898 | 7,304 | 30,731 |
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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.
The UK has no fossil fuel subsidies. We’re firmly committed to tackling climate change by using renewables, storage, interconnectors, new nuclear and more to deliver a secure and dynamic energy market at the least possible cost for consumers.
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 contingency plans his Department is putting in place in the event that work on Wylfa Newydd Power Plant is not resumed.
Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford
As my rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State said to the House on 17 January, the Government will continue to discuss with Hitachi bringing forward new nuclear at Wylfa. He also said that the Government will set out a new approach to financing new nuclear in the planned energy White paper in the summer. Furthermore, the Wylfa project was not due to be operational until the late 2020s and there are a range of options for generating this capacity over that time-frame.