Asked by: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)
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 capacity of AstraZeneca to deliver sufficient quantities of its covid-19 vaccine to meet the Government target of offering a first vaccine to everyone in the most vulnerable groups by the middle of February 2021.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Government has procured 100 million doses of the Oxford University/AstraZeneca/ vaccine.
The UK was the first country in the world to start a vaccination programme using this vaccine. Due to our swift and decisive action there has been a regular and steady supply of vaccine doses arriving in the UK since early December 2020.
We remain in close contact with all our vaccine suppliers. The UK’s vaccine supply and scheduled deliveries will fully support vaccination of priority cohorts 1 to 4, as advised by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. We are on track to offer a first vaccine to every person in these cohorts by 15 February 2021.
As of 4 February 2021, nearly 10.5 million people across the UK have been vaccinated with the first dose of the vaccine. The UK COVID-19 Vaccines Delivery Plan sets out how the Government will work with the NHS, devolved administrations, local councils, and the Armed Forces to deliver the largest vaccination programme in British history.
Asked by: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)
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 enable all hospitality venues to re-open when January 2021 covid-19 lockdown restrictions are lifted.
Answered by Paul Scully
As my Rt. Hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said, we intend to publish our plan for taking the country out of lockdown in the last week of February. That plan will depend on the continued success of our vaccination programme, and on Covid-related deaths falling at the pace we would expect as more people are inoculated.
Asked by: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, for what reasons caterers are not able to resume teaching lessons in their home in areas under tier 3 covid-19 restrictions.
Answered by Paul Scully
From 6 January, a national lockdown applies in all of England. The message is to stay at home. Training can be provided online or through other means of remote learning.
Asked by: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many jobs the Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution will create in the Dudley North constituency.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan
Spanning clean energy, buildings, transport, nature and innovative technologies, the Ten Point Plan will mobilise £12 billion of government investment to unlock three times as much private sector investment by 2030. In doing so we will support a further 90,000 green jobs across the UK by 2024, and up to 250,000 by 2030, building on the 460,000 jobs that already exist in the low carbon economy today.
Support for green jobs across the UK, including the West Midlands, will be delivered by:
The Energy White Paper, published in December, drives forward the Ten Point Plan commitments, reaffirming how clean energy means green jobs and economic growth for the whole country. Leading up to COP26, we will set out further ambitious plans across key sectors of the economy – including our Heat and Buildings Strategy and the Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy.
Asked by: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps the Government will take to support medical research charities who are experiencing a shortfall in income as a result of a fall in donations during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Amanda Solloway
I refer my hon Friend to the reply I gave to Question UIN 121276.
Asked by: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)
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 merits for businesses of using (a) hydrogen and (b) electricity as a fuel source.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
There are a range of fuels and technologies that could play an important role in decarbonising energy use for business and industry including hydrogen, electrification, heat networks and biogas. Our understanding of the respective roles of hydrogen and electricity continues to develop informed by internal and external analysis, innovation and demonstrator projects.
We already have a number of policies and programmes that support business and industry to decarbonise, including Climate Change Agreements, energy audits under the Energy Saving Opportunities Scheme (ESOS), the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund and the Industrial Heat Recovery Support Programme, as well as our wide-reaching Energy Innovation Programme. For example, the £20m Industrial Fuel Switching competition aims to stimulate early investment in fuel switching processes and technologies, such as biomass, hydrogen and electricity, as part of our innovation programme to support the decarbonisation of heavy industry.
Asked by: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what comparative assessment his Department has made of the (a) medium and (b) long term environmental effects of (i) hydrogen and (ii) electricity as energies across their sourcing dispensing and consumption cycles.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
BEIS has undertaken a number of studies looking at the environmental performance of hydrogen and electricity in a number of scenarios. The comparative environmental advantages of each depend on how they are produced (‘green’, ‘blue’ or ‘grey’ hydrogen and renewable or fossil fuel electricity generation) and the end use for the energy vector (for example in transport or heating applications). The studies do not differentiate between medium and long-term environmental effects.
Asked by: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)
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 review the eligibility criteria for Government green subsidies to enable more community buildings to access funding to install renewable energy sources.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
The £10m Rural Community Energy Fund (RCEF) provides non-capital grant support to rural communities in England. RCEF grants cover the costs for feasibility and further project development work to bring community renewable energy projects to an investment-ready stage. The RCEF eligibility criteria ensures funding is only allocated to projects that demonstrate value to the taxpayer.
The Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) gives small scale low-carbon electricity generators, including community energy projects, the right to be paid for the renewable electricity they export to the grid. There are currently more than 10 SEG tariffs on offer from electricity suppliers, which small scale generators can choose from.
Asked by: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to support environmentally-friendly industry and manufacturing in Dudley North constituency.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
In April 2020, a consortium led by the Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) was awarded funding from UK Research and Innovation through the Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge. The LEP was invited to compete for a total of up to £8 million in phase two of the competition, to develop plans for decarbonising the local industrial cluster through the ‘Repowering the Black Country’ project.
This project aims to agree a roadmap for the Black Country’s industry to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2040. The roadmap will provide a framework for securing significant commercial funding and investment to support clean industrial growth within the region.
In July 2020, the Government announced plans to publish an Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy in Spring 2021. The Strategy will set out the Government’s vision for a prosperous, low carbon UK industrial sector by 2050.The Government is also investing £147 million towards the Manufacturing Made Smarter challenge, which is open to firms across the UK. This competition will support innovation in industrial digital technology that will accelerate the drive to net zero, raise productivity by 30%, and create thousands of new highly-skilled jobs.