Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
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 made representations to the Intellectual Property Office on the importance of a national copyright exhaustion regime to UK (a) authors and (b) publishers.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Government is currently considering the UK’s future exhaustion of intellectual property rights regime. The Government will be consulting on this matter in early 2021 and encourages authors and publishers to feed into this process.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of an international copyright exhaustion framework on the ability of UK rightsholders to enforce those rights.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Government is currently considering the UK’s future exhaustion of intellectual property rights regime. The Government will be consulting on the potential impact of different exhaustion of rights regimes in early 2021 and how they may affect IP rights holders.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the potential role of a national copyright exhaustion framework in underpinning the UK’s (a) publishing industry and (b) other creative exports.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Government is currently considering the UK’s future exhaustion of intellectual property rights regime. The Government is also considering the role of different exhaustion regimes and the potential impact on different sectors such as the UK’s publishing industry.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
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 £160 million allocated to developing offshore wind he plans to spend on the coasts of Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross; and whether he plans to tackle fuel poverty in the far north of Scotland with that funding.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
One hundred and sixty million pounds will be made available to upgrade ports and infrastructure in the offshore wind sector. This will enable the sector to support jobs directly and indirectly by 2030 in ports, factories and wider supply chains, manufacturing the next-generation of offshore wind turbines and delivering clean energy to the UK.
No locations are confirmed at this stage. We are inviting landowners or developers of potential large-scale coastal manufacturing hubs to contact the department, by responding the request for information published on 6th October 2020 on the Gov.uk website by 30th October.
The purpose of the new funding is to enable development of supply chains.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment the Government has made of the effectiveness of the plans of the (a) French Government (b) German Government and (c) US Administration to support their domestic aerospace industries; and if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing support for the aerospace industry in Sutherland.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 16 June 2020 to Question 58050. We continually assess the impact on global aerospace supply chains of other countries. My Rt. Hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a host of measures to help businesses through this period, including those in the aerospace sector, with £330 billion worth of Government support for businesses across the UK. The Government will continue to support all those affected by the crisis, in all parts of the UK.
We also co-fund aerospace research and development through the £3.9 billion Aerospace Technology Institute, as well as the £300 million Future Flight programme.
In addition, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme has supported 8 million people, emergency loan schemes have awarded billions of pounds of support, and we have a world-leading export credit body that is expecting to support £3.5 billion of aviation exports over the next 18 months.
We will continue to support the UK aerospace industry to get back on its feet, and back into a position of growth, protecting high paid jobs across the length and breadth of the UK.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether accredited observer organisations will have access to the Blue Zone at COP26.
Answered by Paul Scully
The engagement of observer organisations will be of fundamental value to COP26.
IGOs and NGOs are firstly required to register for observer status via the UNFCCC’s online registration system. Once observer status has been obtained, organisations can then register delegates to attend UNFCCC conferences and meetings. Accredited delegates will have access to the Blue Zone at COP26.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of plans in (a) France, (b) Germany and (c) the US to support their domestic aerospace industries.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
We continually assess the impact on global aerospace supply chains of other countries.
My Rt. Hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a host of measures to help businesses through this period, including those in the aerospace sector, with £330 billion worth of Government-backed and guaranteed loans made available to support businesses across the UK. The Government will continue to support all those affected by the crisis.
We also co-fund aerospace research and development through the £3.9 billion Aerospace Technology Institute, as well as the £300 million Future Flight programme. In addition, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme has supported 8 million people, various loan schemes have awarded billions of pounds of support, and we have a world-leading export credit body that is expecting to support £3.5 billion of aviation exports over the next 18 months. We continue to work closely with the UK’s aerospace sector to understand what more can be done.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
What progress he is making on the national space strategy; and if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of a national space innovation fund.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
We have united departments across government to develop a UK Space Strategy, which will help the UK lead the way in this fast-growing sector and create thousands of jobs across the country. Our Space Strategy will support cutting-edge space science and technologies and foster world-leading British innovation.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether the timeframe for bringing forward secondary legislation to enable the launch of small satellites will ensure that the target date of achieving a first launch by 2021 can be met.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The Space Industry Act 2018 was a major step towards establishing the safe and supportive regulatory framework needed to enable launches to take place from the early 2020s. Work across Government is now under way to develop the secondary legislation and stand up the regulator to accept applications for spaceflight licences by early 2021.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of excess delivery charges on people in the far north of Scotland; and what steps he is taking to reduce those charges.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
As a Government we have ensured that everyone, including retailers, has access to an affordable postal service for deliveries across the UK via the Universal Service.
The Consumer Protection Partnership is engaging with industry to understand their pricing models and how to reduce costs for consumers in Scotland and Northern Ireland but ultimately these are commercial decisions for each business. Wayfair’s decision to scrap delivery charges on purchases over £40 anywhere in the UK is the type of commercial decision that will drive competition and lead to lower costs.
Through the CPP’s engagement, industry is showing signs of shifting with marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay currently looking at how they can improve the transparency of their delivery options. Menzies Distribution also took a commercial decision to launch a new delivery service (HighlandParcels.com) last year enabling residents in the Highlands and Islands to register and receive their parcels for a fixed fee of £4.99 per delivery.