Asked by: Colin Clark (Conservative - Gordon)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to the oral contribution of the Minister for Energy and Clean Growth of 16 October 2019, Official Report column 498, what progress the Government has made on reviewing the use of anaerobic digesters and the sustainable sourcing of biofuels.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The Committee on Climate Change published their report on ‘Biomass in a low carbon economy’ in November 2018. The report was a significant contribution to the evidence base and will inform future policy development on renewable energy, including the use of anaerobic digesters and sustainability criteria for biomass.
Asked by: Colin Clark (Conservative - Gordon)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the cost to his Department has been of the Renewable Heat Incentive, and what assessment he has made of the value for money of that incentive.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
Payments to participants on the Renewable Heat Incentive are funded through Annual Management Expenditure (AME) rather than Department Expenditure (DEL). Once all heat readings are submitted, we expect the cumulative AME spend on the RHI to the end of 2018/19 to be approximately £2.68bn.
Ofgem e-Serve administers the scheme on behalf of the Department alongside a number of other schemes. Funding for delivering those schemes was just over £19 million in 2018/19.
In relation to value for money, this is assessed as part of regular Impact Assessments, the last of which was published in February 2018.
Asked by: Colin Clark (Conservative - Gordon)
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 ensure that large companies issue payments to contractors within reasonable times.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
Last year Government launched a Call for Evidence to assess what further steps and intervention may be needed to create a responsible payment culture. A full response will be published shortly and will contain a full package of policy measures.
During the Spring Statement, the Government announced that it will require large company’s Audit Committees to review payments practices and report them in their annual accounts. This will elevate payment practices to Board level and increase transparency.
Government is clear that unfavourable payment practices is a serious issue, particularly for smaller businesses. That is why we have a range of measures in place with the aim to address the imbalance in market power between parties, increase transparency and encourage better payment practices through culture change.
The Payment Practices and Performance Reporting Requirement requires large businesses to report biannually on their payment practices and performance. Businesses must publish this information on gov.uk, providing transparency in payment practices and making payment behaviour a reputational, board room issue. To date over 13,000 reports have been submitted.
The Small Business Commissioner, launched in December 2017, is committed to supporting Britain’s 5.7 million small businesses to resolve payment disputes with larger private sector businesses, helping drive a culture change in payment practices.
Government continues to support the Prompt Payment Code as a best practice in payment standards. Last year, my rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced a new, tough and transparent compliance regime to ensure the Code is rigorously enforced. The Secretary of State also announced that he had appointed the Small Business Commissioner to the Prompt Payment Code Compliance Board.