Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent discussions he has had with the chief executive of HM Land Registry on application backlogs.
Answered by Paul Scully
My Noble Friend the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Lord Callanan is the responsible Minister for HM Land Registry. My Noble Friend meets the Chief Executive and Chair on a regular basis to discuss a broad range of operational and strategic matters with the last meeting in September 2021. HM Land Registry is focused on increasing output and reducing completion time for applications by increasing capacity, implementing new processes and accelerating digital services.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether he has plans to bring forward legislative proposals to reform the powers and role of Companies House.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Corporate Transparency and Register Reform consultation, published in May 2019, outlined plans for the reform of Companies House. These far-reaching reforms include identity verification of company directors and those who control companies; an expansion in the powers of Companies House to query and challenge information submitted to the register; and improving the processes for supressing personal information from the register in instances where it is no longer relevant or presents a potential threat to the safety of individuals. This consultation received 1,320 responses and in September 2020, the Government published its response.
Please see the below links to the 2019 Corporate Transparency and Register Reform consultation and to the Department’s response:
Following this consultation, the Department published, in December 2020, three further consultations, which set out further details of the Government’s reform proposals. These consultations included ‘Corporate transparency and register reform: implementing the ban on corporate directors’; ‘Corporate transparency and register reform: improving the quality and value of financial information on the UK companies register’; and ‘Corporate transparency and register reform: powers of the registrar’.
Please see the links to these consultations below:
The Government will respond to these consultations in due course and plans to legislate when Parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
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 businesses which carry out work through the Green Homes Grant scheme are paid on time.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The scheme administrator is working to ensure vouchers are paid as quickly as possible.
Payment to installers is a four-step process. It requires the customer to confirm the work has been completed, the installer to lodge the work and the scheme administrator to undertake scheme checks before they can proceed to payment.
Once it has reached the payment stage, the administrator aims to make payments within five-working days. However, if an inspection is deemed necessary then the process will take longer, especially given the current COVID-19 restrictions.
As of 3 June 2021, 19,122 vouchers had been paid, with a total government contribution of £77 million.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent estimate he has made of the number of companies registered with Companies House that have addresses in the UK without the landowner's knowledge.
Answered by Paul Scully
Companies House does not hold information on the number of companies registered at UK addresses without the landowners’ permission.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many and what proportion of coronavirus restart grants applied for by businesses in Southport were approved by Sefton Borough Council before 17 May 2021.
Answered by Paul Scully
The £5 billion Restart Grants scheme announced by my Rt. Hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer on 3 March 2021 are one-off grants to businesses in the non-essential retail, hospitality, leisure, personal care and accommodation sectors to support businesses to reopen as Covid-19 restrictions are lifted in the coming months.
Businesses in the non-essential retail sector are able to apply for grants of up to £6,000. Businesses in the hospitality, leisure, personal care and gym sectors are able to apply for grants of up to £18,000.
We are not able to share a breakdown of the funding distributed by Sefton Borough Council at this stage. We will publish data on Restart Grant payments in due course.
All data on Government allocations and Local Authority payments of grant schemes is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-grant-funding-local-authority-payments-to-small-and-medium-businesses.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what support is available to pubs affected by the covid-19 lockdown restrictions.
Answered by Paul Scully
There is a significant package of financial support currently available to pubs to help with the difficulties caused by Covid-19 and the associated social distancing measures the Government has put in place. The wide range of schemes include:
We continue to keep our support for pubs under review and to engage with the sector.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
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 financial effect on his Department of moving to net zero carbon emissions; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
The Department is committed to becoming net zero by 2050 at the latest and work is in progress to meet that target. It is too early to give an estimate of the financial effect on the department.
The Department undertook an energy audit in 2019 and we are currently undertaking a range of works, including installation of LED lighting, to reduce our energy consumption. We have established a sustainability board to oversee our planning on net zero. Since 2010 we have:
- Reduced carbon emissions by 65%
- Reduced waste production by 72%
- Eradicated the majority of single-use plastics, including preventing 120,000 single use coffee cups from going to landfill in 2019.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the non-financial effect on his Department of changes required for his Department to move to net zero carbon emissions; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
The Department is committed to becoming net zero by 2050 at the latest and work is in progress to meet that target. It is too early to give an assessment of the non-financial effect on the Department.
The Department undertook an energy audit in 2019 and we are currently undertaking a range of works, including installation of LED lighting, to reduce our energy consumption. We have established a sustainability board to oversee our planning on net zero. Since 2010 we have:
- Reduced carbon emissions by 65%
- Reduced waste production by 72%
- Eradicated the majority of single-use plastics, including preventing 120,000 single use coffee cups from going to landfill in 2019.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department has developed a strategy for the implementation of new on-shore wind farms.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The Government has not developed a strategy for the implementation of new onshore wind farms. We do not believe that more large-scale onshore wind power is right for England, but projects can be developed where there is public support and the projects are located in an area identified as suitable for wind energy development in a Local
or Neighbourhood Plan.
The Government has committed up to £557 million for future Contracts for Difference, which is our main mechanism for supporting new renewables. The scheme is open to less established technologies, such as offshore and remote island wind. The Government has also committed £2.5bn for investment in low carbon innovation up to 2021.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what data the Land Registry holds on which domestic properties have gardens; and whether the INSPIRE Index Polygon or National Polygon Service hold spatial data on gardens.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
HM Land Registry does not hold any data on which domestic properties have gardens. Neither the INSPIRE Index Polygon dataset or National Polygon Service hold spatial data on gardens.