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 he is taking to prevent panic buying in response to the announcement of the January 2021 covid-19 lockdown in England.
Answered by Paul Scully
We are taking all necessary precautions to protect the public, including engaging with industry and business representative organisations to ensure we are fully aware of the issues and impacts businesses are facing and how we can best provide support.
As we have seen this year, the UK has a large, diverse, and highly resilient food supply chain.
We continue to work closely with the food industry, who are well prepared to ensure people across the country have the food and supplies they need.
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 he is taking to promote the take-up of the Green Homes Grant to improve the energy efficiency of tenants’ homes with energy ratings above E.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
The Green Homes Grant Voucher scheme is open to applications from landlords to install energy efficiency and clean heat measures in their rented properties. To be eligible for the scheme, private rented properties in scope of the Domestic Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard (MEES) Regulations must have an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating E or above, or hold a valid exemption. As of 07 December, 11.7% of all applications received for the Voucher scheme have been from landlords.
The £500 million Local Authority Delivery (LAD) element of the scheme will be delivered via Local Authorities and Local Energy Hubs, who have a comprehensive understanding of their local communities and as part of delivery of the scheme are undertaking extensive property assessments and householder engagement work. Together, they will identify eligible low energy efficiency properties (rated EPC D or below) and low-income households including those living in the worst quality off-gas grid homes. Under LAD, Local Authorities may upgrade their own housing stock as landlords or leaseholders and that of Social Housing providers they are partnering with, and also fund improvements to privately owned rental properties.
Furthermore, the Department is currently consulting on raising the minimum energy efficiency standards for privately rented homes in England and Wales to EPC band C. The consultation can be accessed on GOV.UK and will remain open until 30 December 2020.
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 prevent the closure of businesses in the hospitality industry as a result of the covid-19 tiered system of restrictions.
Answered by Paul Scully
We are engaging regularly with the hospitality industry to understand their concerns and to help them through this difficult time. The Government has provided an unprecedented package of support for businesses in the hospitality sector. Measures include the extension of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme until March 2021, grant and loan schemes, the ability for businesses to defer VAT payments, and business rates holidays.
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 ensure that clinically vulnerable people cannot be required to attend work by their employers if their work can be done remotely, during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Paul Scully
Government guidance on shielding and protecting those who are clinically extremely vulnerable from COVID-19 has been updated to clearly state that this group of people are strongly advised to work from home. If they are unable to do so they should not attend work for this period of restriction. The full guidance is available on GOV.UK.
The Government’s safer working guidance makes clear what employers need to do to support clinically vulnerable and clinically extremely vulnerable workers. In all instances, employers must carry out a workplace risk assessment and take action in line with this guidance, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/working-safely-during-coronavirus-covid-19/the-visitor-economy.
Employers who dismiss an employee because they are, or have been, self-isolating, may be liable for unfair or automatically unfair dismissal. This will depend on all the circumstances of the case. Individuals, including those of higher clinical vulnerability, or those who live with someone in that category, may have valid reasons to believe that attending work would create a serious and imminent danger to their health, or to the health of the person they live with. In such cases, it could be automatically unfair to dismiss that individual for staying at home.
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 recent environmental impact assessment his Department has made of the growth of the courier industry.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
BEIS publishes statistics annually on UK territorial greenhouse gas emissions. Latest statistics show, total greenhouse gas emissions from road transport were estimated to be 112.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2018. It is not possible to separate out courier road transport emissions from other road transport emissions based on the statistics.
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 proportion of staff employed by her Department are apprentices.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
As of 31st January 2020, there were 150 apprentices working at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. This is 3.2% of departmental staff.
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 much his Department has spent from the public purse on promoted content on (a) Twitter, (b) Facebook and (c) Instagram in each month since June 2017.
Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford
The attached table shows the amount spent by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on paid social media activity in support of Communication Campaigns. This includes the Shared Parental Leave Campaign, to promote take up of SPL among eligible parents, and the National Living and National Minimum Wage Campaign, to increase awareness of the increases in NLW/NMW and of the complaint’s procedure. It also supported awareness of the Green Great Britain Week, setting out how job opportunities would be created by the move to clean growth.
The table is split for each of the following Social Media channels (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram) and is shown per month from June 2017 until the end of October 2018.