Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
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 encourage the deployment of renewable energy sources in (a) new build and (b) existing social housing.
Answered by Graham Stuart
Improved energy efficiency standards for new builds came into force on 15 June 2022. To meet these new standards, most new buildings are likely to be built with renewable energy sources, principally rooftop solar panels.
The Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund is a £3.8bn Government manifesto commitment over a 10-year period to improve the energy performance of social rented homes, on the pathway to Net Zero 2050. The SHDF Wave 2.1 competition will allocate up to £800m to support the installation of energy performance measures, including renewable energy sources, in social homes.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
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 has taken in response to the closure of the Corporate re-domiciliation consultation.
Answered by Jane Hunt
The Government published a summary of responses to the consultation on 12 April 2022 (https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/corporate-re-domiciliation).
As set out in the response, it is the Government’s intention to introduce a UK corporate re-domiciliation regime, consulting further as appropriate.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
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 people with communal heating systems are not subject to the energy price cap.
Answered by Greg Hands
The CMA completed its investigation into the energy market in 2016. It reported that default tariff customers of the large energy suppliers were paying an average of £1.4billion a year more than they would in a truly competitive market. In response, the Government legislated for Ofgem to introduce a cap on household default gas and electricity tariffs.
Heat networks typically buy their energy through commercial contracts which, in the past, resulted in competitive heat prices for those on networks. Commercial contracts are not covered by the existing Default Tariff Price Cap. The Energy Security Bill will provide Ofgem with powers to regulate heat networks.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many full-time equivalent staff there are employed at Companies House who work solely on investigating the accuracy of company returns and suspicious entries.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Registrar of Companies has no current powers to verify or investigate information properly delivered in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 or other enactments.
Whilst there is no single role that looks purely at the accuracy of company returns and suspicious entries, Companies House have 90 full time equivalents working in their Integrity and Intelligence Team.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether Companies House has plans to increase the number of full-time equivalent staff it employs in 2022 to work solely on investigating the accuracy of company returns and suspicious entries.
Answered by Paul Scully
Budgets for 2022/23 have yet to be finalised. However, Companies House is being provided with £63m over the Spending Review period in order to complete its transformation programme. It is expected that as part of this, Companies House will take a much more active role in interrogating entries on the register, and that the number of staff engaged in these activities will increase.