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Written Question
Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund: Engineering
Monday 13th July 2020

Asked by: Jack Lopresti (Conservative - Filton and Bradley Stoke)

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 ahs had with the Prime Minister on the proposals put to the Government to support the future of British engineering through the Brunel Challenge; and if he will take steps to provide support for the Brunel Challenge slingshot proposal put forward by the UK aerospace, defence, maritime, automotive and atomic energy sectors.

Answered by Nadhim Zahawi

The Government recognises the value of British engineering capability and innovation. That is why we have already invested nearly £2 billion in the Aerospace Technology Institute Programme, providing advice on market opportunities and technology. We have also committed with industry around £1 billion through the Advanced Propulsion Centre, to research, develop, and commercialise the next generation of low carbon technologies to keep the UK at the cutting edge of low carbon automotive innovations. We are also supporting the innovation of digital design through the £147 million Manufacturing Made Smarter Challenge.

At the last Budget, we set out plans for public investment in research and development to reach £22 billion?each year?by 2024/25, which is a record increase in spending.

As part of the upcoming Spending Review we will consider proposals for this investment, of which the Brunel Challenge and slingshot is one of many.


Written Question
Hydrogen: Production
Wednesday 17th June 2020

Asked by: Lord Oates (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what research funding they are providing to accelerate the development of cost-effective production of clean hydrogen through electrolysis.

Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The BEIS Energy Innovation Programme funded four feasibility studies into various innovative ways to produce hydrogen by electrolysis. The reports from these studies are available on the government website. Two projects went on to receive £10.6m in further funding.

ITM Power, a Sheffield based electrolyser manufacturer, received £7.5m to further develop their technology; to trial semi-automation in their production process; and work with Orsted and Phillips 66, to design a system to supply Phillips 66’s Humber oil refinery with green hydrogen.

Environmental Resources Management, a global sustainability consultancy, received £3.1m to carry out a detailed engineering design on a concept that combined floating offshore wind with electrolysis to produce green hydrogen.

In addition, several relevant initiatives are funded through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). These include “Green Hydrogen for Humberside” funded from the £170m Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy Challenge Fund, and several smart local energy system project which incorporate hydrogen electrolysis funded from the £102.5m Prospering from the Energy Revolution Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. Innovate UK is supporting electrolysis projects such as the £226k Centurion Power-to-Gas feasibility study, and several electrolysis research projects are supported through UKRI’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell research hub (H2FC SUPERGEN).


Written Question
Civil Engineering
Tuesday 16th July 2019

Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to support the civil engineering sector in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

Answered by Lord Henley

The Government’s long-term commitment to drive productivity in the construction industry includes support for civil engineering through the UK’s National Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline, which is worth over £400bn of planned public and private investment in nearly 700 projects, programmes and other investments. This includes around £190bn to be invested by 2020/21. It is estimated the next decade will see over £600bn of public and private investments in infrastructure. The National Productivity Investment Fund (NPIF) has also been increased to £37bn and has been extended by another year until 2023-24. The NPIF is the cornerstone of the Government’s plan to boost growth in areas critical to productivity.

The investments we are making from the Construction Sector Deal to transform the sector’s productivity includes our commitment to invest £170m, matched by £250m from industry in the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) in the Transforming Construction: Manufacturing Better Buildings programme. The programme will improve productivity through promoting the development and commercialisation of digital, manufacturing, energy generation and storage technologies for the construction and built environment sectors. The Transforming Construction programme will also promote a range of R&D and demonstration projects through cross sector collaboration; and £72m will be invested in the Transforming Construction Alliance – a consortium of the Centre for Digital Built Britain, the Manufacturing Technology Centre and the Building Research Establishment to support collaboration. The sector deal will aim to create a new business model, driven by investment, and embedded throughout the UK.


Written Question
Artificial Intelligence
Tuesday 14th May 2019

Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have plans to invest in projects to improve the development of artificial intelligence in the UK.

Answered by Lord Henley

Artificial Intelligence is one of the global trends which will transform our future, changing jobs and businesses across the country, and we want people to be able to capitalise on these opportunities.

The AI Sector Deal, announced in April 2018, outlines up to £0.95bn package of support for the sector, which includes Government, industry and academic contributions.

Since the Sector Deal launch the Government has invested in a number of areas. For example:

  • Announcement of £20 million Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) support for Next Generation Services using artificial intelligence, and £210 million ISCF support for Data to early diagnostics and precision medicine which includes using AI to analyse medical images in digital pathology.
  • Funded up to £50m for five new centres of excellence for digital pathology and imaging, including radiology, using AI medical advances.
  • Funded £30m for the new Bayes Centre in Edinburgh, a world-leading centre of data science and AI in October 2018.
  • £3m for three new research projects to investigate how businesses can make best use of AI in insurance and law as well as analysing consumer attitudes to AI.
  • Announced up to £79 million of Government funding to study 5 million healthy people to develop new diagnostic tests using AI.
  • Announced up to £79 million for three new AI programmes to transform engineering, urban planning and healthcare.
  • Announced £600,000 funding for UK-Korea Health Sciences collaboration to focus on better diagnosis of dementia through the use of AI.
  • 40 artificial intelligence and data analytics projects, backed by £13 million in Government, announced to boost productivity and improve customer service.

Our ambition in AI and data will not stop at the Sector Deal. This is only the start of the UK’s plans to be recognised as a place where ingenuity and entrepreneurship can flourish, where technology follows the highest ethical standards and where the transformative potential of this technology is spread across the UK economy more widely and for the betterment of society.


Written Question
Job Creation: East Midlands
Wednesday 27th February 2019

Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent steps he has taken to help businesses to create more highly skilled jobs in the East Midlands.

Answered by Kelly Tolhurst

The Industrial Strategy is our long-term plan to boost productivity by backing businesses to create high-quality, well paid jobs throughout the United Kingdom, with investment in skills, industries and infrastructure. The Government is supporting businesses in the East Midlands through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, which brings together world-class UK research with business investment to develop the technologies that will transform existing industries and create entirely new ones. We have to date allocated £6m of ISCF grant funding to projects in the East Midlands and already support a wider range of projects in the East Midlands. For example, we support a robotics project based with the University of Nottingham, in partnership with businesses based at the National Space Centre in Leicester, which is dedicated to investigating the potential of manufacturing in space; which could enable the in-orbit manufacture of replacement parts and tools.

Also, since its launch in 2012, the Start-Up Loans programme, part of the British Business Bank, has delivered more than 59,000 loans, totalling over £450m. 65 Start-Up Loans have been provided to the Mansfield constituency with a total value of £488,200.

Another example of our help to local businesses to create more highly skilled jobs in East Midlands, is through the Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs). They are developing Local Industrial Strategies setting out how they will support the growth in their local economies.Through the Midlands Engine Strategy, we are investing in skills, industries, and infrastructure to boost productivity and create highly skilled jobs. One such instrument is the Midlands Engine Investment Fund, which provides over £250 million to support small businesses to grow. Examples of investments made by LEPs across the East Midlands that are designed to support businesses to create more highly skilled jobs include:

  • D2N2 LEP’s £5 million Local Growth Fund investment in the recently opened University of Nottingham’s Advanced Manufacturing Building shows the Industrial Strategy in action. The state-of-the-art facility will benefit the East Midlands and the whole UK economy by driving innovation, supporting manufacturing businesses of all sizes to thrive and crucially equipping people to secure highly skilled jobs.
  • A collaboration between the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), Derby City Council and the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership has seen the recent opening of a research and innovation centre for cutting-edge nuclear technology on the Infinity Park Enterprise Zone; helping to boost local jobs, growth and expertise.
  • The Boole Technology Centre on the Lincoln Science and Technology Park has been supported by £3.4m Local Growth Fund; providing laboratory, workshop and office space targeting high-growth SMEs in advanced engineering and manufacturing.
  • The Mira Technical Institute based in Hinckley, Leicestershire, has been supported by £9.5m of Local Growth Fund. Based on MIRA Technology park, MTI will enable delivery of specialist skills and qualifications to industry leaders, engineers, technicians and other professionals across the automotive sector, that are key to fuelling their career ambitions and their employer’s business success.

Written Question
Batteries: Research
Thursday 18th January 2018

Asked by: Lord Greaves (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what the criteria are for the provision of grants under the Faraday Battery Challenge, established under the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, for the development and production of battery technology; and, in particular, what emphasis is given, if any, in those criteria, to the improvement of environmental and working conditions in those regions involved in the mining and production of lithium and other battery components, both now and in the future.

Answered by Lord Henley

The Faraday Battery Challenge is a competitive fund delivered coherently by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Innovate UK and the Advanced Propulsion Centre, joining up the stages of technology development from fundamental research, through innovation to industrial scale-up. Its focus is on the development of new and improved battery technology to address the challenges of future electric vehicles and other applications. The scope of the programme includes the environmental challenges of longer first life, recyclability and reuse of batteries. Upstream issues such as mining are out of scope of the programme.