Asked by: Tommy Sheppard (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh 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 funding UK Research & Innovation (a) has allocated to work on long covid by financial year to date and (b) will allocate to that matter in the next five financial years.
Answered by George Freeman
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) have funded around £31 million in long Covid awards to date.
Detailed allocations for specific programmes for this Spending Review period will be set out in due course.
Asked by: Tommy Sheppard (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh 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 funding has been allocated through UK Research and Innovation to research into cholangiocarcinoma.
Answered by George Freeman
Funding into cholangiocarcinoma has been allocated through the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Medical Research Council (MRC), National Centre for the Replacement Refinement and Reduction in Animals in Research (NC3Rs) and Innovate UK.
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has allocated £1.8 million of funding to research related to the understanding, treatment, diagnosis, and prevention of Cholangiocarcinoma since 2018/19.
Asked by: Tommy Sheppard (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh 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 reasons for the increase in energy supply standing charges.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The standing charge is a fixed charge that suppliers pass on to their customers to cover the cost of providing a live supply. One component of these costs relates to transmission and distribution costs, which have increased recently as the Supplier of Last Resort (SoLR) levy is paid via network costs. The SoLR levy covers the unrecoverable costs of a supplier taking on the customers of a failed supplier and reflects the significantly higher costs of purchasing wholesale energy since August. The standing charge is passed on to consumers as a flat rate per day rather than as a percentage charge based on how much energy they use.
Asked by: Tommy Sheppard (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether he was consulted by Royal Mail on the voiding of existing stamps in 2023 before the decision was taken.
Answered by Paul Scully
The development of stamp products is an operational matter for Royal Mail and not an issue in which the Secretary of State has a role.
Asked by: Tommy Sheppard (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what progress (a) her Department and (b) the Office for Product Safety and Standards have made on assessing the potential merits low noise fireworks.
Answered by Paul Scully
In response to issues raised around noise and disturbance, the Office for Product Safety and Standards commissioned research to test the decibel level of commonly used fireworks. The objective of the testing work is to help us understand the decibel level associated with a range of fireworks and whether they are compliant with the regulations.
The testing work was delayed due to covid impacting the laboratory’s ability to carry out the necessary testing, but the results will be available in due course.
Asked by: Tommy Sheppard (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, for what reason self-employed people are ineligible for statutory adoption pay.
Answered by Paul Scully
So far, the Government has focused on supporting employed parents as they do not generally have the same level of flexibility over their work as self-employed parents do. But we recognise that affordability may limit the time away from work that some self-employed adopters can take, and this is why statutory adoption guidance says that Local Authorities should consider making a payment - equivalent to Maternity Allowance - in cases where adopters do not qualify for any statutory payment because of their self-employment. Prospective adopters are also entitled to an assessment of their family’s needs and can benefit from a range of support including discretionary means-tested financial support, advice, information and counselling, and support services.
Asked by: Tommy Sheppard (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether UK Research and Innovation plans to increase its funding for research on mental health in the 2021-22 Parliamentary session.
Answered by George Freeman
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funds a range of research programmes and activities focussed on mental health. For example, the recently announced £24m investment in seven adolescent mental health research programmes that will run for four years from September 2021, and a £2m investment in a mental health data research hub in partnership with Health Data Research UK. These and wider programmes and networks funded through UKRI will continue to develop our understanding of mental health.
UKRI’s overall budget is set by BEIS for each financial year as part of the R&D allocations process. The allocations for financial year 2021-22 were published on 27 May 2021.
New funding in this area will be subject to UKRI’s overall budget following the R&D allocations process for financial year 2022-23.
Asked by: Tommy Sheppard (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh 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 his Department has made of potential conflicts of interest of the members of the Committee on Climate Change.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
BEIS carries out thorough due diligence exercises on each new board member of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), prior to approving their appointment, to identify conflicts of interest so that they can be managed appropriately on appointment. As part of due diligence checks, the Government considers anything in the public domain related to potential members’ conduct or professional capacity. In some cases, it will not be appropriate to offer a role if the conflict is too great.
All Committee members are required to recognise and disclose activities on an ongoing basis, that might give rise to actual or perceived conflicts of interest. The CCC secretariat will review each case to determine whether an individual needs to step down from the Committee to avoid an actual or perceived serious conflict of interest arising or to decide on how to manage whilst remaining in role.
The CCC’s conflicts of interest policy, along with a register of interests for Committee members – both of which are annually updated – and the minutes of each Committee meeting are published in the Transparency section of the CCC’s website at: https://www.theccc.org.uk/about/transparency/.
Asked by: Tommy Sheppard (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh 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 the Government will take to ensure people do not lose their energy supply if they cannot purchase a top up card for a pre-payment meter during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
The Government announced on 19 March that we have secured a voluntary agreement with domestic energy supply companies to support customers impacted by Covid-19.
Under the terms of this agreement, energy suppliers will seek to identify and prioritise customers at risk, support customers who are impacted financially, and support prepayment meter customers to stay on supply.
The support offered will be based on the individual circumstances of the customer and the systems, processes and capability of the supply company. It could include extending discretionary or friendly credit, or sending out a pre-loaded top up card for prepay customers who are unable to leave home to top up.
Asked by: Tommy Sheppard (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether he has had discussions with the Office for Nuclear Regulation on (a) restarting Hunterston Nuclear Reactor and (b) reported cracks in that Reactor's graphite core; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford
Operational discussions relating to the Hunterston Nuclear Reactor are a matter for the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and the commercial provider. Hunterston will only return to service when the ONR is satisfied that it is safe for it to do so.