Asked by: David Duguid (Conservative - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department has taken to level up coastal areas in north-east Scotland to date.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The UK Government is committed to levelling up areas across the UK including north east Scotland. Aberdeen City Council has been awarded £20 million from the Levelling Up Fund. Projects in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire have also been allocated funding exceeding £1 million from the UK Community Renewal Fund.
Asked by: David Duguid (Conservative - Banff and Buchan)
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 increase network resiliency in response to Storm Arwen.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
My Rt. Hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has commissioned a post-incident review into Storm Arwen to identify lessons and best practice for system resilience, consumer protection and additional response support. The terms of reference are available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/storm-arwen-electricity-distribution-disruption-review.
Asked by: David Duguid (Conservative - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what discussions his Department has had with the devolved Administrations on electricity network infrastructure in response to Storm Arwen.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy engaged with the Scottish and Welsh Government throughout Storm Arwen.
The Scottish and Welsh Governments, as members of the Energy Emergencies Executive Committee, will be engaged in the post-incident review of Storm Arwen that has been commissioned by my Rt. Hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
Asked by: David Duguid (Conservative - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 26 October 2021 to Question 58990, on Broadband: Banff and Buchan, what estimate her Department has made of the geographical coverage of 4G mobile data across (a) Scotland and (b) the UK; and what estimate her Department has made of the average 4G coverage in each parliamentary constituency.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Ofcom is responsible for measuring 4G coverage and provides data at constituency level. Ofcom’s Connected Nations summer update report, shows that 44% of the Scottish landmass had 4G geographic coverage from all four mobile network operators (MNOs), with 81% from at least one operator. Comparatively, the UK has 69% coverage from all four MNOs, and 92% from at least one operator.
Scotland will benefit significantly from the £1 billion Shared Rural Network which will see 4G geographic coverage from all four operators rise to a minimum of 74% and coverage from at least one operator increase to 91%. On 29 June we released further details of how this world leading programme will benefit both the people who live and work in Scotland, and at a regional level across the UK.
Asked by: David Duguid (Conservative - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
What steps his Department is taking to support defence jobs throughout the UK.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
Last year the Ministry of Defence invested over £20 billion in industry and commerce across the UK directly and indirectly supporting many thousands of jobs.
Asked by: David Duguid (Conservative - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what plans he has to freeze or lower excise duties on whisky.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As announced at Autumn Budget 2021, the duty rates on beer, cider, wine and spirits will be frozen for another year, saving consumers £3 billion over the next five years and supporting the hospitality industry and its suppliers as they recover from the pandemic. Due to the continued freeze on alcohol duty, Scotch whisky is also facing the lowest real-terms tax rate since 1918.
Asked by: David Duguid (Conservative - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to support small independent breweries in Scotland.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Treasury has acted through its unprecedented coronavirus response to support small breweries, including through furlough, grants and allowing breweries to remain open throughout the Covid-19 lockdown.
The Treasury committed to reform Small Brewers Relief (SBR) to ensure it continued to support growth. Our review is ongoing, and we will publish our response to our technical consultation in due course.
As announced at Autumn Budget 2021, the duty rates on alcohol will be frozen for another year, saving consumers £3 billion over the coming years. This will save beer drinkers £900m and consumers 3p off a pint of beer. Since ending the beer duty escalator in 2013, compared to previous planned rises, consumers have saved 21p off a pint of beer.
Asked by: David Duguid (Conservative - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many military personnel deployments there have been in Scotland to assist the Scottish Health and Scottish Ambulance Services, by local authority area.
Answered by James Heappey
From 1 March 2020 to 20 October 2021, there have been 32 military personnel deployments to support the Scottish Health and Scottish Ambulance Services through Military Aid to the Civil Authority (MACA) requests. These MACA tasks ranged from supporting the COVID-19 vaccination and testing programme in Scotland, providing Service personnel to drive ambulances, as well as the use of defence estate and military planners.
The table below shows the number of military deployments broken down by local authority area. The total exceeds 32 as some tasks spanned over several local authority areas.
Location | Number of MACA tasks |
Aberdeen | 2 |
Borders | 1 |
Central Belt | 2 |
Dumfries | 1 |
Edinburgh | 8 |
Fife | 2 |
Glasgow | 7 |
Highlands & Islands | 1 |
Kinloss | 1 |
Lanarkshire | 2 |
Lothian | 1 |
Rosyth | 1 |
Nationwide (Scotland) | 8 |
Asked by: David Duguid (Conservative - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what estimate he has made of the cost of deploying of military personnel to assist the Scottish Health and Scottish Ambulance Service during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by James Heappey
Since 22 March 2020, the estimated cost of assisting the Scottish Government in support of Op RESCRIPT (MoD's COVID-19 response) is £15 million.
Asked by: David Duguid (Conservative - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many premises in Banff and Buchan constituency are not connected to superfast broadband.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
According to data from the latest Ofcom Connected Nations report (Summer 2021), there are 6,753 premises that are unable to access superfast broadband speeds of 30Mbps in the constituency of Banff and Buchan. The latest data from Thinkbroadband shows that 85% of premises in Banff and Buchan can access superfast broadband (>30Mbps), up from 74% in October 2016.
Superfast broadband coverage across Scotland will be extended further through the ‘Reaching 100%’ (R100) programme. The first funding commitment from the UK Government’s £5 billion Project Gigabit was announced in the summer to enable upgrades to gigabit speeds for over 5,000 premises which were within scope for superfast coverage via R100. The government will continue to work with the Scottish Government to extend gigabit coverage as far as possible through Project Gigabit.
Communities and businesses in rural areas not in line for commercial coverage or government-funded projects to provide gigabit coverage are also eligible for immediate help with the costs of installing gigabit through the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme as part of Project Gigabit.
Those premises unable to access speeds of at least 10Mbps are likely to be eligible for support via the Universal Service Obligation, which gives every eligible premises the legal right to request a decent, affordable broadband connection, providing download speeds of at least 10 Mbps and upload speeds of 1Mbps.