Asked by: Nigel Adams (Conservative - Selby and Ainsty)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what progress his Department has made on its analysis of whole system costs for intermittent renewable energy sources.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy recognises the importance of considering the whole system impacts (both costs and benefits) of different electricity technologies when formulating future Government policy: this is a crucial element in delivering secure, clean and affordable energy to consumers. The Department’s social cost benefit analysis, which plays a key role in policy making, accounts for wider system costs, including network and balancing costs.
To deepen the Department’s understanding of the impacts of individual electricity generation technologies, Frontier Economics were commissioned to develop a comprehensive framework to define whole system impacts and their components and drivers, which can be applied to conventional, low-carbon and renewable large- and small-scale technologies. The resulting methodology report and its peer reviews will be published in due course.
Asked by: Nigel Adams (Conservative - Selby and Ainsty)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what discussions he has had with commercial banks and other providers of Radio Frequency Identification-enabled cards on (a) incidents of contactless card fraud and (b) prevention of such fraud.
Answered by Margot James
Since his appointment, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has had no discussions with commercial banks and other providers of RFID-enabled cards about incidents of contactless card fraud or their prevention.
Asked by: Nigel Adams (Conservative - Selby and Ainsty)
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 relative merits of changing the (a) subsidy structure and (b) tariff rate with reference to the administration of the non-domestic Renewable Heat Incentive for biomass combined heat and power generators.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Government has made changes to the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) Scheme Regulations 2011, and these amendments came into force on 1 August 2016.
The changes were made to ensure appropriate value for money for the taxpayer. The decision to make the changes was informed by market intelligence, scheme data and consultation responses.
Asked by: Nigel Adams (Conservative - Selby and Ainsty)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether he will allow combined heat and power biomass plants pre-accredited under the Renewable Heat Incentive that are in-build but not yet in receipt of full accreditation to remain eligible under the rules of the scheme which prevailed at the time of the initial investment.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Government has made changes to the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) Scheme Regulations 2011, and these amendments came into force on 1 August 2016.
The changes therefore apply to all new biomass-Combined Heat and Power plant with an accreditation date on or after 1 August 2016.
Asked by: Nigel Adams (Conservative - Selby and Ainsty)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what guidance his Department has given to Ofgem on whether the new subsidy structure relating to low electrical output combined heat and power solid biomass generators should apply to those generators that are (a) funded, (b) built and (c) in-build and already in receipt of pre-accreditation certificates.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Government has made changes to the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) Scheme Regulations 2011. These amendments came into force on 1 August 2016. The regulations require Ofgem to apply the new rules to all new biomass-Combined Heat and Power plant with an accreditation date on or after 1 August 2016.
Asked by: Nigel Adams (Conservative - Selby and Ainsty)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 2 August 2016 to Question 42624, what the evidential basis is for the conclusion that there has been a decrease in autocomplete suggestions from search engines providing access to stream ripping and online converter websites.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
Work to reduce the prevalence of autocomplete suggestions which are likely to lead search engine users to infringing websites is still ongoing, and so it is not yet possible to analyse the resultant effectiveness of these measures.
This work is discussed by representatives of the creative industries and search engines at the round table meetings chaired by my noble Friend Baroness Neville-Rolfe as Minister for Intellectual Property. OFCOM provide research for these meetings utilising results which they take from publicly accessible search interfaces.
Asked by: Nigel Adams (Conservative - Selby and Ainsty)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 2 August 2016 to Question 42624, what the evidential basis is for the conclusion that a decrease in the prominence of copyright infringing websites in search engine results has resulted in a decrease in infringement.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
Publically available research from industry clearly shows a decrease in traffic to the most high profile Bit Torrent indexing websites following changes to search engine algorithms to demote websites which have been the subject of large numbers of copyright infringement notices. While it is not possible to say exactly how this equates to changes in infringement, traffic levels to these websites are likely to be highly correlated with levels of infringing activity.
The work of the Ministerial roundtable group on search and copyright is supported by research from OFCOM, which gives the group a periodic snapshot of the prominence of copyright infringing websites in search results for various search terms.
Asked by: Nigel Adams (Conservative - Selby and Ainsty)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what representations he has received on the potential merits of requiring search engines to change their algorithms to reduce the visibility of illegal streaming websites.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
My noble Friend the Minister of State for Energy and Intellectual Property, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, chairs regular roundtable meetings between the UK’s leading search engine providers, representatives of the music and film industries, and government officials.
Since the instigation of these roundtables, Google, Yahoo! and Bing have all taken steps to reduce the prominence of copyright infringing websites in their search results. These steps have included algorithm changes as well as changes to the autocomplete suggestions offered to users.
The discussions are supported by research undertaken by OFCOM which has shown a decrease in the prominence of the most infringing websites (as measured by the number of notifications Google have received about infringing content for those sites).