Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what proportion of domestic consumers' energy bills are made up of green taxes on average; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Greg Hands
Environmental and social policy costs currently represent 8% of the average dual fuel bill. A full breakdown of these costs was published by Ofgem in April and is available at: https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-data-and-research/data-portal.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy or Industrial Strategy, what the total amount of revenue collected in green taxes placed on domestic energy bills has been in each of the years for which those taxes have been levied.
Answered by Greg Hands
This information is available from the Office for Budget Responsibility: https://obr.uk/efo/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-march-2022/.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
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 potential merits of space based solar power; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by George Freeman
The Government recognises that space based solar power has the potential to contribute significantly to our Net Zero ambition. Because of this, BEIS has recently commissioned an independent assessment and report that calculates both benefits and cost of developing space based solar power. The report was published on 27th September 2021 and is available on the Government website: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/space-based-solar-power-de-risking-the-pathway-to-net-zero.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
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 allow companies to adopt policies to abide by Wates Review principles, rather than impose a public interest entities system; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Wates Principles provide a way to complying with corporate governance reporting requirement on large private companies in the Companies (Miscellaneous Reporting) Regulations 2018. Reporting started from January 2020. The Government and the Financial Reporting Council are in the process of evaluating its effectiveness, including use of the Wates Principles.
The Government’s White Paper ‘Restoring trust in audit and corporate governance’ set out proposals to introduce a wider definition of ‘public interest entity’ to ensure that large businesses of all types which are of public importance are subject to appropriate regulation. The Government is currently considering responses and will respond in due course.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
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 plans to take to encourage more clinical trials of vaccines in the UK; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The UK has an existing national clinical trial infrastructure, which has enabled a rapid rollout of new clinical trials, such as that for the Oxford/AstraZeneca, Novavax, Janssen, and Valneva vaccines. The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) provides support and critical infrastructure for clinical trials, making the UK well-suited to facilitate clinical trials that are essential to the development of any vaccine.
The Government launched an NHS service in July 2020 to enable people across the UK to sign up to participate in COVID-19 vaccine trials. The NHS COVID-19 vaccine research registry, developed in partnership with NHS Digital, has helped to facilitate the rapid recruitment of large numbers of people into trials. As of 2 March 2021, over 453,000 individuals have signed up to the vaccine registry.