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155723

	registered interest
	date	17/11/2014
	answering body	Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
	answering dept id	26
	answering dept short name	Business, Innovation and Skills
	answering dept sort name	Business, Innovation and Skills
	hansard heading	New Businesses: Windsor
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps the Government has taken to support disabled people in Windsor constituency who want to start their own business.
	tabling member constituency	Windsor
	tabling member printed	Adam Afriyie
	uin	214744
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 24/11/2014 answer text <p>We are continuing to work hard to provide the right support to make life easier for everyone who wants to start their own business, including disabled people.</p><p> </p><p><a href="http://www.greatbusiness.gov.uk/" target="_blank">www.greatbusiness.gov.uk</a> provides support and advice for anyone trying to grow a business as well as for entrepreneurs starting out. This includes a 'Business Finance and Support Finder' that can provide a customised source of government backed support and finance for business. In addition to on-line support, the Business Support Helpline (0300 456 3565) is available to provide a quick response on queries about starting a business, or a personalised and in-depth advice service for more complex needs. For those looking for start-up finance and advice there are Start-Up Loans: 10 loans worth a total of £47,500 have been drawn down in Windsor to date.</p><p> </p><p>Finally, the New Enterprise Allowance helps people claiming certain out of work benefits to start up their own business. As of June 2014, 10,040 disabled people (from a total of 53,350) had started a new business with the help of the NEA.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency West Suffolk answering member printed Matthew Hancock question first answered 24/11/2014 15:08:21 answering member 4070 label Biography information for Matt Hancock
	tabling member	1586 label Biography information for Adam Afriyie

425397

	registered interest
	date	02/11/2015
	answering body	Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
	answering dept id	26
	answering dept short name	Business, Innovation and Skills
	answering dept sort name	Business, Innovation and Skills
	hansard heading	South East Asia: Exports
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps he has taken to boost exports to (a) Indonesia, (b) Vietnam, (c) Thailand, (d) Malaysia, (e) the Philippines and (f) other countries in South East Asia.
	tabling member constituency	Windsor
	tabling member printed	Adam Afriyie
	uin	14282
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 11/11/2015 answer text <p>UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) has established a regional network to support UK trade and investment across South East Asia. This helps provide UK companies with access to the fast-growing markets of the region. The network is on target to assist nearly 10,000 businesses this year. UKTI has directly assisted in export deals with the region worth £2bn in the first six months of this financial year, putting us on track to deliver the UK’s best ever trade figures for the region. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister urged the European Union to accelerate negotiations on the EU-ASEAN FTA, a deal that is worth an additional £3 billion a year to the UK economy.</p><p>Closer collaboration across the region, supported by continued investment from government, has enabled UKTI to operate ever more efficiently, working with more British businesses and securing a higher value of business wins. Six regional priority sectors have been identified- reflecting UK strengths as well as the scale of opportunities in the region – enabling a more strategic approach to trade delivery in Infrastructure, Education, Energy, Financial &amp; Professional Services, Consumer Retail and Healthcare.</p><p>Significant investment is also being made in the development of additional trade service capacity, being delivered by industry partners in the region, principally through Chambers of Commerce. This represents the government’s growing focus on the region as a global growth engine, and is indicative of the continuing importance that this government places in seeking out global opportunities to boost the UK economy.</p><p>In July of this year my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister led a trade mission to Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia. The mission was made up of 30 British businesses, and included the signing of trade deals worth over £750 million. Concurrently, my right hon. Friend the Secretary for State for Business, Innovation and Skills led the inaugural Northern Powerhouse delegation, comprising over 50 UK companies, to Singapore and Malaysia.</p><p>During his visit to Indonesia, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced that the Government will make available up to £1 billion to finance infrastructure projects involving UK business, in Indonesia through its export guarantee scheme. The UK welcomes the recent commitments made by President Joko Widodo’s government on deregulation and improving the business and investment environment in Indonesia, as well as the talks between Indonesia and the EU on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, which will benefit both Indonesia and the UK. Richard Graham MP, the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Indonesia and the Asian Economic Community (AEC) has paid two visits this year to Indonesia, pushing forward trade priorities and promoting work on second-tier cities within Indonesia.</p><p>Two-way trade with Vietnam more than doubled between 2009 and 2014, reaching £2.81 billion, with the UK being amongst Vietnam’s largest trading partners within the EU. During my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s visit in July, the first by a serving British Prime Minister, Rolls Royce and Vietnam Airlines signed an agreement totalling £340 million, Prudential announced a £100 million investment and ZincOx agreed a £75 million investment for hazardous waste recycling.</p><p>In the past year, over 1000 UK businesses have been helped to trade with Thailand. Notable improvements to the business environment include: British beef and lamb now being allowed to be imported into the Thai market after a 20-year hiatus, which will bring business of some £9m over the next five years; the British Embassy Bangkok, with other embassies and Chambers, encouraged the Thai authorities not to proceed with new regulations which would have directly impacted foreign ownership of over 5000 companies, many British, as well as deter further UK investment opportunities; finally the Government has encouraged the Thai authorities, with strong support from the Thai Prime Minister, to sign up to the Construction Transparency Initiative, which should improve public procurement practice for major infrastructure projects.</p><p>Exports to Malaysia (the UK’s second largest export market in ASEAN) have risen by almost 25% between 2010 and 2014. Over the past four years, there have been more UK Ministerial and VIP visits to Malaysia promoting trade and investment than ever before, including two visits by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Recent successes include a £4.2bn supply and maintenance deal between Rolls Royce and Air Asia. Posts have successfully worked to tackle market access barriers, for example, helping to open up engineering and legal services in Malaysia.</p><p>In the first half of this year UK exports to the Philippines grew by 44%, the third highest growth in exports to any country worldwide. Major deals include a £90m contract for the supply of electronic voting machines, a £70m deal for a British solar company and the appointment of Arup as the lead designer on the country’s second largest airport.</p><p>Lord Puttnam, UK Trade and Cultural Envoy to Burma, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam has also made two visits to the region this year, strengthening important business and governmental links and working on campaigns ranging from infrastructure to education.</p> answering member constituency Broxtowe answering member printed Anna Soubry question first answered 11/11/2015 14:53:07 answering member 3938 label Biography information for Anna Soubry
	tabling member	1586 label Biography information for Adam Afriyie

425306

	registered interest
	date	02/11/2015
	answering body	Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
	answering dept id	26
	answering dept short name	Business, Innovation and Skills
	answering dept sort name	Business, Innovation and Skills
	hansard heading	Economic Situation
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what estimate he has made of the contribution of (a) crowdfunding businesses, (b) peer-to-peer lending businesses and (c) big data businesses to the UK economy.
	tabling member constituency	Windsor
	tabling member printed	Adam Afriyie
	uin	14290
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 09/11/2015 answer text <p>The state of equity investment in small businesses was assessed by the British Business Bank in March this year. Their report shows an overall increase in equity investment to small firms in each of the past four years, with both the number of deals and the total amount invested showing a clear upward trend. The contribution from crowdfunding has grown strongly since 2012. By the third quarter of 2014, deal numbers exceeded those of private equity, accounting for almost one-third of seed funding deals in the first half of 2014.</p><p>The Peer-to-Peer Finance Association publishes quarterly performance data, which show net new lending to small businesses of £91m in Q3 2015. According to NESTA, peer-to-peer lending in the UK grew at a rate of 250% annually between 2012 and 2014. The growth of the UK peer-to-peer lending sector has been facilitated by a responsive and flexible regulatory regime that recognises the importance of a competitive and diverse market for business finance.</p><p>The Centre for Economics and Business Research estimates that the big data market could benefit the UK economy by up to £216 billion between 2012 and 2017. Research by NESTA has also found that UK companies making greater use of online customer data are up to 13% more productive than their peers.</p> answering member constituency Broxtowe answering member printed Anna Soubry question first answered 09/11/2015 14:52:44 answering member 3938 label Biography information for Anna Soubry
	tabling member	1586 label Biography information for Adam Afriyie

523376

	registered interest
	date	07/06/2016
	answering body	Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
	answering dept id	26
	answering dept short name	Business, Innovation and Skills
	answering dept sort name	Business, Innovation and Skills
	hansard heading	Space Debris
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps the Government is taking to promote action to remove space debris.
	tabling member constituency	Windsor
	tabling member printed	Adam Afriyie
	uin	39726
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/06/2016 answer text <p>The United Kingdom, through the UK Space Agency (UKSA), is one of the thirteen members of the Inter-Agency Debris Coordination (IADC) Committee, which considers the risks posed by space debris. Our national experts, along with more than a hundred experts from other agencies including NASA, met at Harwell in March 2016 for the annual IADC meeting to discuss many issues, including the need for the removal of space debris from orbit, and how that could best be accomplished.</p><p>The UK is leading studies in partnership with other national agencies to model the future space environment and identify the most effective ways of mitigating the future hazard of space debris.</p><p>UKSA is working with its international partners in technical forums such as the IADC to develop scientific consensus on the best way to manage the hazard posed by debris, such as how many objects might need to be removed, and from where. UKSA is also working to build political consensus within UN forums such as the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space to enable such missions to go ahead with appropriate supervision and support from the international community. This includes developing appropriate regulatory/oversight frameworks within the UK’s Outer Space Act which allow such technologies to be tested and demonstrated safely in the increasingly congested and contested space environment.</p> answering member constituency Orpington answering member printed Joseph Johnson question first answered 15/06/2016 16:57:40 answering member 4039 label Biography information for Lord Johnson of Marylebone
	tabling member	1586 label Biography information for Adam Afriyie

431608

	registered interest
	date	23/11/2015
	answering body	Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
	answering dept id	26
	answering dept short name	Business, Innovation and Skills
	answering dept sort name	Business, Innovation and Skills
	hansard heading	Business: Billing
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what assessment he has made of the effect of the Prompt Payment Code on (a) UK businesses in the FinTech sector and (b) other businesses.
	tabling member constituency	Windsor
	tabling member printed	Adam Afriyie
	uin	17357
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 30/11/2015 answer text <p>The Prompt Payment Code is a voluntary code which organisations from the public, private and third sector can sign up to. The Government monitors a variety of sources to monitor the level of late payment debt. We are not able to assess the direct effect of the Prompt Payment Code on any individual sector.</p><p>New transparency measures will allow us to monitor the payment performance of signatories. Through powers in the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 the Government will introduce a new reporting requirement on the UK’s largest companies – including many Code signatories - to report on their payment practices and performance. We plan to introduce this next year, and the Code will make full use of this new information. From next year small and medium-sized Code signatories will also report on their payment performance directly to the Code. Small and medium-sized companies will report, on an annual basis, on a comply or explain basis.</p> answering member constituency Broxtowe answering member printed Anna Soubry question first answered 30/11/2015 11:15:43 answering member 3938 label Biography information for Anna Soubry
	tabling member	1586 label Biography information for Adam Afriyie

227255

	registered interest
	date	13/03/2015
	answering body	Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
	answering dept id	26
	answering dept short name	Business, Innovation and Skills
	answering dept sort name	Business, Innovation and Skills
	hansard heading	Intellectual Property
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps he plans to take to clarify intellectual property regulations.
	tabling member constituency	Windsor
	tabling member printed	Adam Afriyie
	uin	227518
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 20/03/2015 answer text <p>The Intellectual Property Office as an Executive Agency of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills leads on intellectual property issues. The Intellectual Property Office offers a comprehensive range of guidance, self help tools and educational seminars which bring clarity to existing regulations for businesses and consumers in the UK and overseas. Full details are available on gov.uk. Where the Intellectual Property Office receives feedback or evidence that regulations require clarification, it will consider this and set out an appropriate plan for action. We have no immediate plan for new regulations.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed Mr Edward Vaizey question first answered 20/03/2015 12:57:07 answering member 1580 label Biography information for Lord Vaizey of Didcot
	tabling member	1586 label Biography information for Adam Afriyie

453837

	registered interest
	date	22/02/2016
	answering body	Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
	answering dept id	26
	answering dept short name	Business, Innovation and Skills
	answering dept sort name	Business, Innovation and Skills
	hansard heading	Aviation: Noise
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, when the Government will introduce incentives for the adoption of new technologies designed to manage noise from aircraft on the ground.
	tabling member constituency	Windsor
	tabling member printed	Adam Afriyie
	uin	27725
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 29/02/2016 answer text <p>The Government is supporting investment in new technologies to reduce aircraft noise through grants for R&amp;D supported by the Aerospace Technology Institute. The Government has committed £1.95 billion for aerospace R&amp;D to 2025/26, bringing the total joint Government and industry funding commitment since 2013 to £3.9 billion. So far, 20 projects, worth £136 million, are directly concerned with new technologies to reduce noise from aircraft engines, propellers, rotors, wings and landing gear. These projects are focused on demanding international environmental targets and ensure UK aerospace companies are leading the technological evolution to achieve these.</p> answering member constituency Broxtowe answering member printed Anna Soubry question first answered 29/02/2016 14:31:00 answering member 3938 label Biography information for Anna Soubry
	tabling member	1586 label Biography information for Adam Afriyie

156126

	registered interest
	date	17/11/2014
	answering body	Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
	answering dept id	26
	answering dept short name	Business, Innovation and Skills
	answering dept sort name	Business, Innovation and Skills
	hansard heading	ICT
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps he has taken to encourage growth of the big data industry in the UK; and if he will make a statement.
	tabling member constituency	Windsor
	tabling member printed	Adam Afriyie
	uin	214448
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 24/11/2014 answer text <p>The Government has identified big data as one of the ‘eight great technologies’ that will propel the UK’s future economic growth. Since 2010, the Government has made a series of strategic investments to support the growth of the big data industry in the UK. These include:</p><p> </p><p>- a £159 million investment programme in the UK’s high performance computing and networks infrastructure announced in 2011.</p><p> </p><p>- £189 million investment announced in 2012 to support a programme of big data and energy-efficient computing projects across the UK co-ordinated by the Economic and Social Research Council.</p><p> </p><p>- £10.7 million announced in December 2013 to create a new Higgs Centre for Innovation at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre in Edinburgh that will focus on big data and space technologies.</p><p> </p><p>- £42 million announced in March 2014 to establish a world-leading Alan Turing Institute, which will be established in 2015 to research the analysis and application of big data.</p><p> </p><p>- Investment of over £50 million to establish the Digital Catapult, based in London, which will bring researchers and business together to accelerate new innovative products to market.</p><p> </p><p>On 31 October 2013, the Government also published ‘Seizing the Data Opportunity: a strategy for UK data capability’, which examines the UK’s capability to make best use of all data including big data, public sector held data, research data, and data collected by companies. The strategy was developed in partnership with industry to place the UK at the forefront of extracting knowledge and value from data.</p><p> </p><p>Since the publication of the strategy, the Government has introduced new legislation on copyright exceptions in June 2014 to enable text and data-mining for non-commercial purpose, and has developed new UK Trade &amp; Industry marketing material to attract increased overseas investment and custom to the UK data centre market.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed Mr Edward Vaizey question first answered 24/11/2014 10:42:59 answering member 1580 label Biography information for Lord Vaizey of Didcot
	tabling member	1586 label Biography information for Adam Afriyie

419069

	registered interest
	date	16/09/2015
	answering body	Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
	answering dept id	26
	answering dept short name	Business, Innovation and Skills
	answering dept sort name	Business, Innovation and Skills
	hansard heading	Blockchain
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what assessment he has made of the potential benefits to the UK economy of blockchain technology.
	tabling member constituency	Windsor
	tabling member printed	Adam Afriyie
	uin	10493
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/10/2015 answer text <p>The Government Office for Science is conducting a review of distributed ledger technology, which encompasses Blockchain technology, to highlight the potential benefits of distributed ledgers to the delivery of public services, and to help government identify and remove roadblocks to their safe and effective use.</p><p>The review is being conducted by a panel of experts drawn from academia, business and government under the direction of the Government Chief Scientific Adviser. Their findings and recommendations will be published in a report this autumn.</p> answering member constituency Orpington answering member printed Joseph Johnson question first answered 14/10/2015 11:46:58 answering member 4039 label Biography information for Lord Johnson of Marylebone
	tabling member	1586 label Biography information for Adam Afriyie

524641

	registered interest
	date	13/06/2016
	answering body	Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
	answering dept id	26
	answering dept short name	Business, Innovation and Skills
	answering dept sort name	Business, Innovation and Skills
	hansard heading	Automation
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, whether his Department has made an estimate of the potential number of jobs which will be replaced by automation over the next two decades.
	tabling member constituency	Windsor
	tabling member printed	Adam Afriyie
	uin	40325
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 20/06/2016 answer text <p>The Department has not made a specific forecast of how many jobs will be replaced (or how many additional jobs will be created) over the next two decades due to automation. However, the Government’s Horizon Scanning Programme exploring the impacts of automation on the labour market, and engaging with our international partners.</p><p>Government is taking action to provide individuals with the skills that will help prepare them for changes to the labour market, such as the new school computing curriculum, developing new apprenticeship standards, growing the apprenticeships programme, and introducing the Institute for Coding.</p> answering member constituency Grantham and Stamford answering member printed Nick Boles question first answered 20/06/2016 14:08:26 answering member 3995 label Biography information for Nick Boles
	tabling member	1586 label Biography information for Adam Afriyie