Show Search Form

Search Results

registered interest	true false
date	exactly: or between: and
answering body
answering dept id
answering dept short name
answering dept sort name
hansard heading
house id
legislature	pref label
question text
tabling member constituency
tabling member printed
uin
answer	is ministerial correction true false date of answer exactly: or between: and answer text answering member constituency answering member printed question first answered answering member label previous answer version answering member constituency answering member printed answering member label
tabling member	label

Search

822832

registered interest
date	15/01/2018
answering body	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept id	201
answering dept short name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept sort name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
hansard heading	Redundancy Pay
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the extent of the practice of insolvent companies failing to pay redundancy payments to staff they have dismissed.
tabling member constituency	Leeds Central
tabling member printed	Hilary Benn
uin	122515
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/01/2018 answer text <p>The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has made the relevant statutory payments from the National Insurance Fund under the provisions of the Employment Rights Act 1996 to the former employees of insolvent employers, as listed below:</p><p> </p><p><strong>In the year 2016 – 2017 </strong></p><p>Number of claims from employees received: 63,589</p><p>Number of insolvent cases: 6,994</p><p>Total amount paid: £250,846,496</p><p>Of which were:</p><p>Redundancy, arrears of pay and holiday pay: £179,898,774</p><p>Compensatory Notice Pay: £46,955,219</p><p>Protective Awards: £20,333,935</p><p>Pension payments: £3,933,676</p><p> </p><p><strong>For the year to date </strong>(up until end of December 2017)</p><p>Number of claims from employees received: 45,784</p><p>Number of insolvent cases: 4,940</p><p>Total amount paid: £187,577,458</p><p>Of which were:</p><p>Redundancy, arrears of pay and holiday pay: £140,026,948</p><p>Compensatory Notice Pay: £33,697,391</p><p>Protective Awards: £12,931,388</p><p>Pension payments: £2,992,746</p> answering member constituency Burton answering member printed Andrew Griffiths question first answered 18/01/2018 15:58:03 answering member 3936 label Biography information for Andrew Griffiths
tabling member	413 label Biography information for Hilary Benn

822870

registered interest
date	15/01/2018
answering body	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept id	201
answering dept short name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept sort name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
hansard heading	Redundancy Pay: Conditions of Employment
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to protect employees from losing their statutory redundancy pay as a result of a company restructuring.
tabling member constituency	Leeds North West
tabling member printed	Alex Sobel
uin	122553
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/01/2018 answer text <p>The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will act as state guarantor and make the relevant payment for those employees who have been made redundant and whose employers are unwilling or unable to pay the statutory amounts owed to the employees. Protection for the employees is afforded under the provisions of section 166 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and payments are made from the National Insurance Fund.</p> answering member constituency Burton answering member printed Andrew Griffiths question first answered 18/01/2018 15:58:15 answering member 3936 label Biography information for Andrew Griffiths
tabling member	4658 label Biography information for Alex Sobel

822979

registered interest
date	15/01/2018
answering body	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept id	201
answering dept short name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept sort name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
hansard heading	Construction: Skilled Workers
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many recommendations from the Farmer Review of the UK Constrction Model have been (a) fully and (b) partly accepted or implemented to date.
tabling member constituency	Stroud
tabling member printed	Dr David Drew
uin	122662
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/01/2018 answer text <p>The recommendations made in Mark Farmer’s review of the UK Construction Labour Model are directed at the construction industry, its clients and Government. Government supports the implementation, in full or in part, of nine (from a total of ten) of the headline recommendations of the Review. This is set out in detail in a Ministerial letter to the Construction Leadership Council of 19 July 2017:</p><p><a href="http://www.constructionleadershipcouncil.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Government-Response-to-the-Farmer-Review_19-July-2017.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.constructionleadershipcouncil.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Government-Response-to-the-Farmer-Review_19-July-2017.pdf</a></p><p>Since July, further developments include publication of a review of the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and CITB’s own reform plan (6 and 15 November); the announcement of £34m for construction skills as part of the National Retraining Scheme and a ‘presumption in favour of offsite’ (by 2019) across five major procuring Departments, both in the Autumn Budget; and the announcement of a Sector Deal for construction in the Industrial Strategy White Paper (27 November).</p><p>In addition, the Construction Leadership Council continues to support the agenda set out in the Farmer Review through its innovation, business models and skills work streams.</p> answering member constituency Burton answering member printed Andrew Griffiths question first answered 18/01/2018 16:50:56 answering member 3936 label Biography information for Andrew Griffiths
tabling member	252 label Biography information for Dr David Drew

821559

registered interest
date	12/01/2018
answering body	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept id	201
answering dept short name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept sort name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
hansard heading	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Electric Vehicles
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many vehicles in his Department's fleet are (a) electric vehicles and (b) ultra-low emission vehicles.
tabling member constituency	Wakefield
tabling member printed	Mary Creagh
uin	122477
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/01/2018 answer text <p>BEIS does not operate a fleet of cars. The Department uses cars provided by the Government Car Service.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Burton answering member printed Andrew Griffiths question first answered 18/01/2018 17:29:15 answering member 3936 label Biography information for Andrew Griffiths
tabling member	1579 label Biography information for Mary Creagh

820699

registered interest
date	11/01/2018
answering body	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept id	201
answering dept short name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept sort name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
hansard heading	Urban Areas
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the cumulative effect of the closure of (a) banks, (b) post offices, (c) building societies and (d) pubs on the sustainability of high streets.
tabling member constituency	Vale of Clwyd
tabling member printed	Chris Ruane
uin	122117
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 19/01/2018 answer text <p>The Government does not make assessments of the impact bank, post office, building society branch, or pub closures have on the sustainability of high streets. While the decision to close a branch remains a commercial judgement for individual banks and building societies, the impact on communities must be understood, considered and mitigated where possible.</p><p>The industry’s Access to Banking Standard, launched in May 2017, commits banks and building societies to ensure personal and business customers are better informed about branch closures and the reasons for them closing, along with the options they have locally to continue to access banking services, including specialist assistance for customers who need more help. The Access to Banking Standard is monitored and enforced by the independent Lending Standards Board.</p><p>99% of banks’ personal and 95% of banks’ business customers are now able to withdraw cash, deposit cash and cheques, and make balance enquiries at a Post Office counter via its network of 11,600 branches. At Autumn Budget 2017, the then Economic Secretary to the Treasury wrote to the Post Office and UK Finance to ask them to raise public awareness of the banking services available at the Post Office for individuals and SMEs.</p><p>Since 2010, Government has invested over £2billion in to the Post Office network, with a further £370m announced on 20 December. This has led to the most stable number of branches in the network for decades.</p><p>The Post Office continues to meet its access criteria with 99.7% of the total population living within 3 miles of a Post Office.</p><p>The Government recognises the importance of pubs to communities and the high street. To support pubs and local industries, and recognising that alcohol duties already rose by inflation earlier this year, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced at Autumn Budget 2017 that he was freezing all alcohol duties. Pubs play an important role in local communities and help promote responsible drinking. Freezing beer duty rates this year helps pubs: the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) estimate around two thirds of the alcohol sold in pubs is beer. At Spring Budget 2017, the Chancellor announced a package of support for pubs in England with their business rates. This provided a £1,000 discount to all pubs with a rateable value of less than £100,000. This scheme was extended by an additional year into 2018/19 at Autumn Budget.</p><p>Additionally, the Chancellor brought forward the planned switch in the indexation of business rates from RPI to CPI by two years to 2018. This will benefit all businesses on the UK high street and represents a cut in business rates every year from April 2018. In total, the switch from RPI to CPI is worth £4.1bn by 2023.</p> answering member constituency Burton answering member printed Andrew Griffiths question first answered 19/01/2018 10:04:56 answering member 3936 label Biography information for Andrew Griffiths previous answer version 34625 answering member constituency Burton answering member printed Andrew Griffiths answering member 3936 label Biography information for Andrew Griffiths
tabling member	534 label Biography information for Chris Ruane

820889

registered interest
date	11/01/2018
answering body	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept id	201
answering dept short name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept sort name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
hansard heading	Palmer and Harvey: Insolvency
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether the Insolvency Service has received an application from the administrators of Palmer & Harvey for financial assistance with the payment of redundancy pay to staff.
tabling member constituency	Leeds Central
tabling member printed	Hilary Benn
uin	122307
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 16/01/2018 answer text <p>Eight companies in the Palmer &amp; Harvey group entered into administration on 28 November 2017. A further company entered into administration on 15 December 2017. Matthew Callaghan, Ian Green and Zelf Hussain of PWC were appointed joint Administrators.</p><p>Around 2,500 staff were subject to immediate redundancies with around a further 450 retained to assist the Administrators in managing the business to an orderly closure.</p><p>Administrators are not required to apply for financial assistance in such cases. Where an employer enters into formal insolvency, with subsequent job losses, and there is a shortfall of redundancy, notice, wages, holiday pay and pension contributions to employees, the Insolvency Service’s Redundancy Payments Service is in place to process those claims and make payments in accordance with the statutory limits.</p><p>As at 12th January 2017, 2,384 claims had been received, out of an expected total of 2,959. Approximately 80% of claimants received some form of payment before Christmas. Where claims are outstanding we are proactively liaising with the claimant and/or the Administrators to obtain the necessary information and aim to process the claim with 48 hours of receipt of the necessary information.</p> answering member constituency Burton answering member printed Andrew Griffiths question first answered 16/01/2018 16:30:21 answering member 3936 label Biography information for Andrew Griffiths
tabling member	413 label Biography information for Hilary Benn

820916

registered interest
date	11/01/2018
answering body	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept id	201
answering dept short name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept sort name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
hansard heading	Consumers: Protection
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department plans to repeal the incorporation in UK law of the Consumer Protection Cooperation Regulation after the UK leaves the EU.
tabling member constituency	Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough
tabling member printed	Gill Furniss
uin	122334
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 16/01/2018 answer text <p>The purpose of the EU (Withdrawal) Bill is to provide a functioning statute book on the day we leave the EU, and ensure that it is for our sovereign Parliament (and in some cases for the devolved legislatures) to make any future changes.</p><p>The Bill will convert all directly-applicable EU legislation - that is regulations, decisions and tertiary legislation - as it applies in the UK immediately before exit, into domestic law and will preserve all the laws which have been made in the UK to implement EU obligations.</p><p>Any future changes will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.</p> answering member constituency Burton answering member printed Andrew Griffiths question first answered 16/01/2018 14:39:53 answering member 3936 label Biography information for Andrew Griffiths
tabling member	4571 label Biography information for Gill Furniss

819801

registered interest
date	10/01/2018
answering body	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept id	201
answering dept short name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept sort name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
hansard heading	Energy: Prices
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, for what reasons his Department's impact assessment on the Draft Domestic Gas and Electricity (Tariff Cap) Bill does not include a clear description of what constitutes conditions for effective competition.
tabling member constituency	Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey
tabling member printed	Drew Hendry
uin	121873
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/01/2018 answer text <p>The draft Bill requires Ofgem, as the expert regulator, to carry out a review into whether the conditions for effective competition are in place. The review must consider, among other things, the progress in installing smart meters and it will be for Ofgem to determine the relevant factors in carrying out that review.</p> answering member constituency Burton answering member printed Andrew Griffiths question first answered 15/01/2018 16:06:06 answering member 3936 label Biography information for Andrew Griffiths
tabling member	4467 label Biography information for Drew Hendry

819811

registered interest
date	10/01/2018
answering body	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept id	201
answering dept short name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept sort name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
hansard heading	Employment: Disadvantaged
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps she is taking to ensure that people who live in socially deprived areas are aware of their employment rights.
tabling member constituency	Strangford
tabling member printed	Jim Shannon
uin	121883
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/01/2018 answer text <p>The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) provides free and impartial information and advice to employers and employees on all aspects of workplace relations and employment law. Where Acas identifies a potential complaint in relation to National Minimum Wage (NMW), agency workers, working time, gangmasters and agricultural wages rights, it will forward calls to the relevant enforcement body.</p><p> </p><p>Additionally, the Government does work to support and promote use of this service, and increase workers’ awareness of their rights. For example, the Government is developing a targeted communications campaign to ensure workers are aware of their rights to the NMW. This will follow the £1.75 million campaign we ran over Spring 2017 to achieve the same ends.</p><p> </p><p>To increase accessibility, the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate have also worked with the Romanian and Bulgarian Embassies to produce a leaflet in these respective languages, detailing what the minimum standards workers should expect from employment businesses and agencies are. The same leaflet is also available in English and provides contact numbers for agency workers to raise concerns or complaints. HMRC also carry out risk based enforcement using risk modelling and intelligence that they receive to enforce the NMW on behalf of workers who may not be aware of their rights, and are therefore less likely to complain.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p> answering member constituency Burton answering member printed Andrew Griffiths question first answered 17/01/2018 13:21:25 answering member 3936 label Biography information for Andrew Griffiths
tabling member	4131 label Biography information for Jim Shannon

819872

registered interest
date	10/01/2018
answering body	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept id	201
answering dept short name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept sort name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
hansard heading	Parental Leave and Parental Pay
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to the letter of 21 December 2017 from Minister for Small Businesses, Consumers and Corporate Responsibility, whether his Department intends that evaluation of Shared Parental Leave and Pay scheduled to take place in 2018 will include mothers who are eligible for Maternity Allowance.
tabling member constituency	Cardiff West
tabling member printed	Kevin Brennan
uin	121944
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/01/2018 answer text <p>We have committed to evaluate the Shared Parental Leave and Pay scheme in 2018 and the intention is that the evaluation will include mothers who are eligible for Maternity Allowance.</p> answering member constituency Burton answering member printed Andrew Griffiths question first answered 15/01/2018 16:59:20 answering member 3936 label Biography information for Andrew Griffiths
tabling member	1400 label Biography information for Kevin Brennan