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 he plans to develop a new power generating plant with Hitachi; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford
The Government remains committed to decarbonising our economy and last September we published our Clean Growth Strategy which set out a range of actions Government is taking. New nuclear has a crucial role to play as we seek to transition to a low carbon society.
Government regularly engages with developers in the UK including Hitachi regarding the construction of a new nuclear power station. These commercial discussions are ongoing and no final decisions have been made. These discussions are commercially sensitive.
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 take steps to encourage the use of bioplastics in the production of plastic items for everyday use.
Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford
We have been working closely with the British Plastics Federation and other major stakeholders to promote the sustainability of the plastics industry and encourage its contribution to the circular economy. In the recent Industrial Strategy White Paper we committed to publishing a new UK Bioeconomy Strategy. This will provide a framework within which government, industry and the research community can support the development of bio-based products and processes, including bioplastics.
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 he is taking to encourage consumers to switch energy providers.
Answered by Claire Perry
The number of customers switching between energy suppliers continues to increase – approximately 7.8 million energy switches took place in 2016 - an increase of nearly 1.7 million on 2015.
The Government worked with Ofgem and industry to change the industry rules so that it is now possible for customers to switch suppliers in up to 21 days. This has been enshrined as the minimum standard in the Energy Switch Guarantee, launched in June 2016. Prior to this it took around 5 weeks to switch.
We continue to work with Energy UK who administer the Guarantee to strengthen and promote it to give consumers greater confidence that the process of switching energy supplier will be simple, speedy and safe.
We are working closely with Ofgem on their switching programme to enable consumers to switch their energy supplier reliably and quickly delivering next day switching as a new industry standard and improving reliability of the switching process through better management and oversight of industry data.
The Government has provided £1.3m funding for the Big Energy Saving Network and Big Energy Saving Week this winter to fund third sector organisations and community groups, to support vulnerable consumers so they can switch and save.