Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much of the £14.6 billion for Research and Development, announced in the Spending Review 2020 will be allocated to medical research.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Medical research is an important part of the UK research landscape. The Government recognises this and already provides significant support within the tax system, the research funding system and through the many measures that have been introduced to counter the impacts of the pandemic.
Despite the fiscal challenges, the Government has set out plans at Spending Review to cement the UK’s status as a global leader in science and innovation by investing £14.6 billion in R&D in 2021/22. Departments will now undertake an allocations process to decide how this funding should be spent across the R&D activities for which they are responsible. Funding for medical research will be subject to this allocations process and further details of how funding will be allocated will be announced in due course.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
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 4 November 2020 to Question 109298 on Small Businesses: Coronavirus, on what date the Government notified the European Commission of its intention to take up that new provision; and what the timetable is for the Commission to provide its approval to the UK Government relating to that provision.
Answered by Paul Scully
The UK authorities submitted a notification to the European Commission, under its Temporary Framework, on 20 October 2020. The notification included a request to take advantage of the new measure to enable greater support to companies facing a decline in turnover during the eligible period of at least 30% compared to the same period of 2019, due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The European Commission is currently considering the notification and will provide a response in due course.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
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 12 October 2020 to Question 100352 on Small Businesses: Coronavirus, if he will take account of the European Commission’s revised framework allowing for an additional provision of €3m funding for businesses materially impacted by the covid-19 outbreak and notify local authorities of that increased provision immediately.
Answered by Paul Scully
On October 13 2020 the European Commission announced a further amendment to its State aid Framework - introducing a new measure to enable greater support to be provided to companies facing a decline in turnover during the eligible period of at least 30% compared to the same period of 2019 due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The UK has notified the European Commission of its intention to take up this new provision and must await approval to do so.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
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 potential merits of (a) notifying the European Commission that local authority grants to businesses impacted by local lockdown restrictions fall outside of any state aid provisions restricting businesses receiving full compensation and (b) directing local authorities that payments can be made to local businesses outside of such state aid restrictions.
Answered by Paul Scully
The United Kingdom left the EU on 31 January 2020. Under the Withdrawal Agreement, EU State aid rules continue to apply during the transition period, subject to regulation by the EU Commission.
In administering the Local Restrictions Support Grant, the Government will provide to an eligible business up to £1,500 of funding for each three-week period that the business is required to close by local restrictions implemented by Government. Local authorities administering the schemes must be satisfied that all State Aid requirements have been fully met and complied with when making grant payments.
Although payments under this scheme and certain other Covid-19 related business grant schemes are treated as State aid and therefore count toward the total de minimis State Aid limit of €200,000, if firms have reached that threshold they may still be eligible for funding under the Covid-19 temporary State aid framework where the limit is €800,000.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
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 include heat pumps in the Green Homes Grant.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
In his Summer Economic Update, my Rt. Hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a £2bn Green Home Grant scheme that will support homeowners and landlords in England to improve the energy efficiency of their properties, reducing energy bills and carbon emissions, and supporting a green economic recovery.
The funding will be spent on paying for accredited tradespeople to install a range of measures, for example insulation, to improve the energy performance of their homes. Further detail on the range of measures will be announced in the coming days, before the scheme’s full launch.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
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 include ground source heat pumps in the Green Homes Grant.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
In his Summer Economic Update, my Rt. Hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a £2bn Green Home Grant scheme that will support homeowners and landlords in England to improve the energy efficiency of their properties, reducing energy bills and carbon emissions, and supporting a green economic recovery.
The funding will be spent on paying for accredited tradespeople to install a range of measures, for example insulation, to improve the energy performance of their homes. Further detail on the range of measures will be announced in the coming days, before the scheme’s full launch.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, for what reason (a) version 2 of the Construction Leadership Council guidance stated that no construction work should be carried out on site if social distancing could not be enforced and (b) version 3 of that guidance changed those guidelines.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Construction Leadership Council (CLC) has developed Site Operating Procedures (SOP), which align with Public Health England (PHE) guidance on social distancing. The SOP were developed in consultation with the construction industry, and provide practical advice to those seeking to implement the guidance on construction sites so they can work safely.
This approach is based on the Health and Safety Executive(HSE) Hierarchy of Controls and HSE should consider enforcement action if a site is not consistently implementing the measures set out by PHE .
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
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 enforce staggered start times for construction sites to enable the social distancing of construction workers on public transport during rush hour.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The health and safety of construction workers is a priority for the Government. In order to help ensure that it is safe for construction workers to operate in their workplace, the Government has worked with Public Health England (PHE) to develop sector-specific guidance on social distancing. We have also worked with the Construction Leadership Council to develop Site Operating Procedures (SOP), which provide practical advice to those seeking to implement the guidance.
The SOP set out that sites should consider introducing staggered start and finish times to reduce congestion and contact, and plan site access and egress points to enable social distancing. The Health and Safety Executive should consider enforcement action if a site is not consistently implementing the measures set out by PHE.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
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 allow local authorities to retain any surplus funding allocated for the business support grant to distribute further grants to local businesses that did not qualify under that scheme’s initial criteria.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Department is in regular contact with local government to understand how the Small Business Grant Fund and the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant Fund are rolling out, as well as the impact they are having on businesses. The main priority of the Government is that funding can get out to eligible businesses as quickly as possible.
On 1 May 2020, the Business Secretary announced the Local Authority Discretionary Grants Fund, which is aimed at small businesses with ongoing fixed property-related costs - not linked to the business rates system. Where local authorities have surplus funding from their original allocations, they can use up to 5% of their allocation to provide these discretionary grants. Local authorities that have used, or expect to use, all of their allocation will receive an additional 5% to meet the cost of these discretionary grants.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
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 Chancellor of the Exchequer on funding to support new approach methodologies to replace animal experiments.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
My rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State has regular discussions with ministerial colleagues, including my rt. hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer on a range of issues.