Asked by: Laura Smith (Labour - Crewe and Nantwich)
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 has taken to encourage members of the Commonwealth to share the same goals in tackling anthropogenic climate change and global warming.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
Climate change has long been of concern to the Commonwealth and the majority of member states continue to advocate for ambitious action on climate change today. Small and vulnerable states – which account for almost 60% of the Commonwealth – face an existential threat from climate change and associated natural disasters.
This concern has been reflected in Commonwealth statements as early as the Langkawi Declaration on the Environment in 1989. Under UK chairmanship at the 2018 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, leaders reaffirmed their commitments under the Paris Agreement. We would expect the Commonwealth to play a major role in ensuring that a UK-hosted COP26 would be a success.
The Government is now using its diplomatic network to support mitigation and adaptation across the Commonwealth. For example:
Asked by: Laura Smith (Labour - Crewe and Nantwich)
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 took to raise concerns on USA withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement during President Trump's recent visit.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
While my rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State did not meet with President Trump during the US state visit, the Secretary of State has stressed in discussions with US counterparts that the UK would prefer the US to remain in the Paris Agreement. During the visit, the Prime Minister raised the issue of climate change with President Trump directly and underlined the UK’s support for the Paris Agreement.
Asked by: Laura Smith (Labour - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent steps he has taken to ensure the transparency of all publicly funded medical research.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The Department is committed to transparency in publicly funded research, including medical research. This is primarily delivered through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), as a BEIS partner organisation.
UKRI and its Councils have a long-term commitment to make the research process and findings as open, understandable and reproducible as possible, whilst respecting ethical considerations and necessary exceptions. All UKRI research awards are published on Gateway to Research, along with information on outputs and research papers, and papers relating to medical research are accessible to all via the open access repository EuropePMC. UKRI is also currently progressing the commitment to transparent research in all disciplines through the UKRI Open Access Review, which aims to increase access to publicly funded research.
Within UKRI, the Medical Research Council (MRC) uses additional funding conditions for clinical trials and intervention studies which require the registration of all clinical trials and that all results (positive and negative) are publicly available in a timely way, usually within 12 months.
Looking wider, UKRI is also working with Universities UK and other stakeholders to revise and strengthen the Concordat to Support Research Integrity, including attention to transparency and open communication of research methods, analysis, and the sharing of negative or null results.
The transparency of research funded by other government departments, and their bodies, is not covered in this response.
Asked by: Laura Smith (Labour - Crewe and Nantwich)
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 trends in the level of fuel prices in different areas of the country.
Answered by Claire Perry
The Government does not collect official statistics on regional fuel prices.