Asked by: Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will make it his policy to prohibit the sale of single use barbecues.
Answered by Paul Scully
All consumer products, including single use barbecues must be safe in normal or reasonably foreseeable use in line with the requirements of the General Product Safety Regulations 2005.? There are no plans to ban their sale.
Asked by: Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether local authorities have discretion to make grants to a business under the Small Business Grant Scheme if the business is not registered with the Valuation Office Agency; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Government has announced a package of support for businesses to help with their ongoing business costs in recognition of the disruption caused by Covid-19. This package of support includes the Small Business Grant Fund (SBGF). Businesses with a property that on the 11 March 2020 were eligible for Small Business Rate Relief (SBRR) Scheme or those businesses which on 11 March 2020 were eligible for relief under the Rural Rate Relief Scheme, will be eligible for the SBGF.
The SBGF, alongside the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grants Fund, have helped supported many thousands of small businesses.
In order to ensure that Local Authorities can help these businesses, on 1 May 2020 the Business Secretary announced that a further up to £617 million is being made available to Local Authorities in England to allow them to provide discretionary grants. This additional Local Authority Discretionary Grants Fund is aimed at small businesses with ongoing fixed property-related costs but not liable for business rates or rates reliefs. It is our intention that the following businesses should be considered as a priority for these funds:
Local authorities may choose to make payments to other businesses based on local economic need and subject to those businesses meeting the specific eligibility criteria.
Asked by: Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will make an assessment of the feasibility of BP's plans to become net zero by 2050; and if he will make it his policy to encourage other oil companies to set net zero targets.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
The Government welcomes BP’s new 2050 Net Zero goals for its worldwide business. These should allow the company to make a significant contribution to climate action. It would not, however, be appropriate for the Government to assess the feasibility of BP’s plans given the international and commercial context in which they will be delivered.
More generally, while welcoming the action already being taken to reduce emissions, the Government would encourage the oil and gas sector to build ambitiously on what they are doing. Major and rapid cuts in unabated emissions are essential to meeting global climate goals.
The Government has put the UK at the forefront of global action on climate change and we are determined to build on the leadership we have shown to date, notably through our world-leading net zero target set in UK legislation in June last year. We are determined to use our Presidency of this year’s crucial COP26 climate negotiations to promote ambitious action to deliver the transformational change required by the Paris Agreement.
Asked by: Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps she is taking to ensure that Government grants for start-up companies are not fraudulently obtained.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
Government has robust checks in place and carries out due diligence through its Delivery Partners when issuing grants to both start-ups and established businesses. Where recipients have been found to act fraudulently serious action will be taken.
Through Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) competitive funding is provided to businesses, including start-ups. UKRI have a zero-tolerance approach to fraud and there are stringent controls and checks in place to stop fraud from happening throughout the lifetime of a project. These include:
In addition, UKRI have a dedicated investigations team tasked with identifying individuals and companies who submit false information in order to obtain funding. Relevant information and intelligence is shared with Action Fraud and CIFAS, and where appropriate UKRI will apply as many sanctions as possible, including criminal prosecution and civil recovery. UKRI take all reasonable steps to prevent any organisation found to have acted fraudulently from accessing future funding, on behalf of the whole of Government.