Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
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 provision free accommodation to (a) British and (b) non-British nationals employed at Rosyth Dockyard.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
BEIS has not assessed the provision of free accommodation to British and non-British nationals employed at Rosyth Dockyard. Accommodation issues are a matter for businesses operating at Rosyth Dockyard to discuss and resolve locally.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
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 a comparative assessment of the provision free accommodation to (a) British and (b) non-British nationals employed at Rosyth Naval Yard.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
Naval Dockyards are the responsibility of MOD. BEIS has not assessed the provision of free accommodation to British and non-British nationals employed at Rosyth Dockyard.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to page 172 of the Levelling Up the United Kingdom White Paper, how much and what proportion of the £33 million investment in the Driving the Electric Revolution programme for Power Electronics Machines and Drives Industrialisation Centres will be allocated to Newcastle.
Answered by George Freeman
Through the Driving the Electric Revolution challenge, UK Research and Innovation has made an award of £33m to Newcastle University, which will be used to establish four Industrialisation Centres across the UK, involving a range of partners throughout the four locations. Newcastle University will be responsible for establishing and managing the North East Industrialisation Centre, which will include a physical centre in Sunderland.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
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 £58 million paid in damages to those effected by the Post Office Horizon scandal, will be paid for by (a) Fujitsu or (b) the public purse.
Answered by Paul Scully
The £57.75m 2019 Group Litigation Order settlement was paid entirely from Post Office Ltd resources.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, when he plans to reply to the correspondence of 9 April 2021 from the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East.
Answered by George Freeman
A reply was issued on 4 May from my Hon. Friend the then Minister for Science, Research and Innovation (Amanda Solloway). A copy of that response was sent to the Rt. Hon. Member on 24 September.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
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 ensure that signal strength is strong enough to support smart meter installation in all areas.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Second generation smart meters use a dedicated national smart metering communications network, which deploys a variety of technologies to deliver connectivity to premises. These include cellular mobile technology plus wireless mesh radio, and long-range radio technology.
The Data Communications Company (DCC), which operates the national communications infrastructure for smart metering, is obligated under the conditions of its licence to provide communications coverage to at least 99.25% of premises across Great Britain.
The DCC is required by its licence conditions to assess the opportunities to increase the overall level of coverage beyond its contractual requirements, where it is practicable and cost proportionate.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what his Department’s target is for smart meter installations by the end of 2021.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Smart meters are replacing traditional gas and electricity meters in Great Britain as part of an essential infrastructure upgrade to make the energy system more efficient and flexible, enabling the cost-effective delivery of net zero greenhouse gas emissions. The rollout is making good progress, with 24.2 million smart and advanced meters in homes and small business across Great Britain as of end March 2021.
Energy suppliers are currently required by licence conditions to take all reasonable steps to install smart meters in homes and small businesses. The Government has confirmed that a new four-year policy framework with fixed annual installation targets for energy suppliers will commence on 1 January 2022 to drive the consistent, long-term investment needed to achieve market-wide rollout.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
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 increase the number of high quality green jobs in Tyne and Wear.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We are determined to seize the once-in-a-generation economic opportunities of the net zero transition by creating new business opportunities and, by one estimate, supporting up to 2 million green jobs by 2030 across all regions of the UK. The UK has a strong base to build upon, in 2019 there were already over 410,000 jobs in low carbon businesses and their supply chains across the country. Through my Rt. Hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan, we will support a further 90,000 green collar jobs across the UK by 2024, and up to 250,000 by 2030.
The Getting Building Fund is investing £64.4 million in 20 projects across the North East, creating an estimated 2475 jobs. This includes £1.82 million for Tyne Dock Enterprise Park in South Shields, which will accelerate site preparation and infrastructure for the offshore wind sector. This site has been selected by Equinor/SSE to establish a major Offshore wind land-based hub to service the offshore wind farms off the North East coast and will create over 200 jobs. The Getting Building Fund is also investing £1.3 million to develop a strategic riverside offshore wind enterprise zone in Wallsend, which could create a further 500 jobs and £1.86 million in the InTEGReL Customer Energy Village research facility in Gateshead, which will demonstrate technologies enabling existing housing stock decarbonisation to net zero.
Through the Growth Deal agreed with North East LEP, we provided £379.6 million to support nearly 50 projects and programmes, which are estimated to create up to 8200 jobs and attract £300m of public and private investment. In Tyne and Wear, this included £8 million for the Swans Energy Park in Wallsend, a key strategic site for the offshore and subsea sector, which will host several hundred jobs when fully developed.
In order to ensure we have the skilled workforce to deliver net zero and our Ten Point Plan, we have launched the Green Jobs Taskforce. The taskforce will conclude its work in summer 2021, with the actions feeding into our Net Zero Strategy to be published later in the year.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will make it his policy that student maintenance loan payments are paid on a monthly basis to nursing students.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
Full-time students starting nursing courses from 1 August 2017 will qualify for the same loans for living costs as other new full-time undergraduate students in 2017/18. Loans for living costs are paid to students in three equal instalments at the start of each term to help meet up-front costs while studying.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, whether the proposed TTIP agreement provides equality of competition for US and EU companies in the tendering of public service contracts.
Answered by Anna Soubry
The Procurement Chapter in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will not require the Government to outsource public services, and it will only apply to specified services sectors. The Procurement Chapter is still being negotiated – the EU and US made their first exchange of offers in February. Our aim is to enhance the opportunities for UK companies seeking to operate in the US. An assessment for the European Commission suggests that around 10% of the EU's potential economic gains could come from liberalisation of procurement in the US. Therefore, the Procurement Chapter is expected to contain an obligation not to discriminate in favour of domestic firms when procuring services.