Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether it is Government policy to build a satellite system to rival the EU's Galileo network.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
In the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review, the Government made a commitment to enhance the resilience of Position, Navigation and Timing services for military, key domestic resilience responders, including Critical National Infrastructure. The terms that the European Commission are prepared to offer for continued UK participation in Galileo fall short of the minimum that we consider acceptable, to be able to rely on Galileo for such critical services. As such, in December 2018, the former Prime Minister announced that we would not use Galileo for these users. The UK Space Agency with the Ministry of Defence is currently undertaking an Engineering, Design and Development Phase to confirm the viability of a UK Global Navigation Satellite System to meet the specific needs of the UK and its allies. The UK Government does not see our work on a UK GNSS as a rival to Galileo, we are designing a system that meets the specific needs of the UK and allies and one that would provide services complimentary to Galileo and other Global Navigation Satellite Systems.
This approach fits in the wider UK ambition for space, which will see the UK as leaders of the global space industry with a target to capture 10% of the global space economy by 2030.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many arrests have been made by the Civil Nuclear Constabulary in each of the past five years; and how many prosecutions arose from those arrests.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Arrests made by the Civil Nuclear Constabulary:
2015 – 5
2016 – 16
2017 – 26
2018 – 46
2019 – 29 (04 September 2019)
How many prosecutions arose from those arrests?
Any prosecutions would have been led by the relevant Home Office territorial Force or Police Scotland. The outcomes of any prosecutions are not communicated to the Civil Nuclear Constabulary. As a result, the Civil Nuclear Constabulary does not hold this information.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what his timescale is for the publication of the Green Finance Strategy.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
Green Finance is a key priority for the Government - to support delivery of our ambitious Clean Growth Strategy, to drive economic growth as part of our Industrial Strategy, and to ensure the UK remains a key driving force in enabling the global transition to a low carbon economy. We have already taken action to respond to the recommendations of the Green Finance Taskforce. This includes announcing the establishment of the Green Finance Institute. We will be publishing our Green Finance Strategy in due course.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many applications for (a) electricity supply standard licences and (b) gas supply standard licences were submitted to Ofgem in (i) 2018, (ii) 2017, (iii) 2016 (iv) 2015 and (v) 2014.
Answered by Claire Perry
This is a matter for Ofgem, who as regulator is responsible for decisions to grant, extend, restrict and revoke gas and electricity supply licences. I have asked Ofgem to write directly to the Honourable Member and a copy of the letter will be placed in the Library of the House.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how and what proportion of applications for (a) Electricity Supply Standard Licences and (b) Gas Supply Standard Licences were granted by OFGEM in (i) 2018, (ii) 2017, (iii) 2016, (iv) 2015 and (v) 2014.
Answered by Claire Perry
This is a matter for Ofgem, who as regulator is responsible for decisions to grant, extend, restrict and revoke gas and electricity supply licences. I have asked Ofgem to write directly to the hon. Member and a copy of the letter will be placed in the Libraries of the House.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
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 applications for (a) Electricity Supply Standard Licences and (b) Gas Supply Standard Licences were refused by OFGEM in (i) 2018, (ii) 2017, (iii) 2016, (iv) 2015 and (v) 2014.
Answered by Claire Perry
This is a matter for Ofgem, who as regulator is responsible for decisions to grant, extend, restrict and revoke gas and electricity supply licences. I have asked Ofgem to write directly to the hon. Member and a copy of the letter will be placed in the Libraries of the House.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many of the (a) Electricity Supply Standard Licences and (b) Gas Supply Standard Licences that were granted by OFGEM in (i) 2018, (ii) 2017, (iii) 2016, (iv) 2015 and (v) 2014 remain active and continue to supply customers.
Answered by Claire Perry
This is a matter for Ofgem, who as regulator is responsible for decisions to grant, extend, restrict and revoke gas and electricity supply licences. I have asked Ofgem to write directly to the hon. Member and a copy of the letter will be placed in the Libraries of the House.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many records his Department holds that have reached the time limit for their transfer to the National Archives but have not been transferred.
Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford
The volume of BEIS’ legacy public records that predate 1994 is currently being reassessed as part of the annual Information Management Report. The deadline for this report is 1st March 2019 which, when published, will provide exact figures on how many legacy records BEIS holds and how many of those are agreed for transfer to The National Archives (TNA).
However, internal analysis took place in late 2018 and showed that 3853 records have been reviewed and are agreed for transfer to TNA. In addition to these, 2611 have reached their time limit but have yet to be reviewed and 10125 records have been reviewed and selected for destruction.
TNA records show that all BEIS legacy records are held under a Retention Instrument (RI) covering 10599 BIS records and 1635 DECC records (RI 130, signed 20th December 2017, expires 31st December 2019). This information is published by TNA and is therefore publicly available. Following the machinery of government changes in July 2016, which occurred following the general election, a number of these records transferred out of BEIS to Other Government Departments and the remaining records are/have been reviewed as part of the plan to reduce our legacy records (i.e. those older than the maximum period records can be retained for) and, so far, the total has reduced by over 60%. The plan to address the backlog was agreed by TNA and published, and we have since been providing updates to the Advisory Council and will be expected to provide a full update again in July 2019.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
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 22 January 2019 to Question 208938 on Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons: Public Records, what the titles are of the records that have been withdrawn.
Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford
It is not possible to provide the titles for all of the records that have been placed under review, as there are in excess of 80,000. The entire Atomic Branch collection of public records have been temporarily withdrawn from open access while the Atomic Weapons Establishment and Ministry of Defence perform a review. It is expected that the majority of records will be returned to open access.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
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 22 January 2019 to Question 208938 on Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons: Public Records, for what reason the review was initiated.
Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford
Shortly after the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) was established in 2005, many thousands of public records dating from the nuclear industry’s earliest days were transferred to its ownership from a range of sources, including the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) which was established in 1954 and was responsible for the UK's entire nuclear programme. The NDA is responsible for safeguarding this, and other collections, as well as ensuring compliance with legislation on public accessibility and security. The NDA, Ministry of Defence and the Atomic Weapons Establishment are jointly undertaking a security review to ensure that it is appropriate for the records to remain in the public domain. As part of the review process, a collection of records (including many relating to the early development of military and civil nuclear technology) has been temporarily withdrawn from general access via The National Archive at Kew.
During the review period, requests for the documents are being handled through the freedom of information inquiry route. Once the review is complete, it is anticipated that public access will be restored to the vast majority of the documents.