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  • Paul Blomfield – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Paul Blomfield – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-06-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, with reference to the Written Statement of 26 May 2016, HCWS30, how many roles there are (a) at and (b) below Senior Civil Service level based in the Sheffield office at St Paul’s Place.

    Joseph Johnson

    As at 31 May 2016 the number of employees of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, working in the Sheffield office at St Paul’s Place at (a) Senior Civil Service level and (b) below Senior Civil Service level, are shown in the table below.

    Grade

    Employees

    Senior Civil Service level

    8

    Below Senior Civil Service level

    214
  • Gregory Campbell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Gregory Campbell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2016-06-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps he is taking to (a) improve the transparency of car hire firms and (b) ensure people hiring cars are not incorrectly charged for damage to such cars.

    Nick Boles

    There is already consumer protection legislation in place that protects consumers when dealing with traders, including car hire firms. The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs) prohibit traders from engaging in unfair commercial practices, such as providing false or deceptive information or descriptions to consumers or leaving out material information.

    Local authority trading standards services and the Competition and Markets Authority enforce the CPRs, and breaches of the legislation can be reported to the Citizens Advice consumer helpline on 03454 04 05 06 in the first instance.

    In addition, the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (CCRs) require traders entering into distance and online contracts to provide consumers with a range of pre-purchase information in a clear and comprehensive manner, including any additional costs and how they will be calculated.

    Finally, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (CRA) provides a wide range of protections for consumers, including restricting the use of unfair terms in consumer contracts. Under the CRA, an ‘unfair term’ is defined as one which, contrary to the requirements of good faith, causes a significant imbalance in the parties’ rights and obligations under the contract to the detriment of the consumer. If a court decides a term is unfair, it will not be binding on the consumer.

    A term, such as the price and the main subject matter, may be exempted from the assessment of fairness if it is transparent and prominent (expressed in plain and intelligible language and legible) and brought to the consumer’s attention in such a way as the average consumer would be aware of it.

    The consumer protection legislation referred to implements EU legislation which applies in all other member states.

  • Paul Blomfield – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Paul Blomfield – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-06-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, with reference to the Written Statement of 26 May 2016, HCWS30, what assessment he has made of the business need for the roles based at (a) the Sheffield office at St Paul’s Place and (b) the London office at 1 Victoria Street.

    Joseph Johnson

    Detailed planning within business areas is continuing in order to assess for which roles there is a permanent business need, and which are either no longer needed or only needed in the short term.

    Based on current estimates the Department expects less than half of the policy roles currently outside London to transfer and be backfilled permanently, as part of the overall reduction in policy roles from 2000 to 1500.

  • Paul Blomfield – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Paul Blomfield – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-06-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, with reference to the Written Statement of 26 May 2016, HCWS30, what proportion of the 1,500 roles will have ministerial exposure following the centralisation of policy functions in London.

    Joseph Johnson

    Co-locating policy teams with the Department’s Ministers and close to Parliament will provide opportunities for all staff to have more ministerial exposure, which helps improve understanding of government priorities.

    The Department does not expect a set number of roles to be consistently exposed to Ministers whilst others are not. This will be dynamic as resource demands shift over time and will depend on policy priorities.

  • Paul Blomfield – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Paul Blomfield – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-06-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, with reference to the Written Statement of 26 May 2016, HCWS30, what estimate he has made of the transition costs associated with the decision to create a combined Business, Innovation and Skills headquarters and policy function in London.

    Joseph Johnson

    The Department has estimated that the transition costs associated with creating a combined policy centre and headquarters in London will be in the range of £9-13m which would be recouped in savings by the end of the Parliament. This model will better enable the Department to operate a more flexible, agile and easily re-deployable policy function which will continue to deliver BIS’ priorities as it reduces in size over the course of the Parliament.

  • Jonathan Ashworth – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Jonathan Ashworth – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jonathan Ashworth on 2016-06-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, whether he has met Mark Samworth, owner of the food manufacturing company Samworths, in the last six months.

    Anna Soubry

    Details of Ministerial meetings are published quarterly alongside gifts, hospitality and travel on the GOV.UK website.

  • Paul Blomfield – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Paul Blomfield – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-06-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps he is taking to reduce his Department’s vacancy rate.

    Joseph Johnson

    The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is developing a Resourcing Strategy that will include targeted recruitment over the next few years including apprenticeships, graduate recruitment, loans from other Government Departments and increasing the use of secondments from the private sector. These interventions, along with having clear workforce plans across the organisation, including undertaking more internal managed moves to deliver priority work, will help reduce the Department’s vacancy rate.

  • Neil Coyle – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Neil Coyle – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Neil Coyle on 2016-06-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps he plans to take to involve small and medium-sized enterprises in the proposed digital apprenticeship system.

    Nick Boles

    We are developing the digital apprenticeship service to support apprenticeships in England. It will help all employers to select an apprenticeship framework or standard, choose a training provider, choose an assessment organisation and post apprenticeship vacancies. By 2020, all employers will be able to use the service to pay for training and assessment for apprenticeships and we will help smaller employers to prepare for this.

    We continue to work with a wide range of employers to develop, test and improve the digital apprenticeship service.

  • Adam Afriyie – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Adam Afriyie – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Adam Afriyie on 2016-06-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps the Government is taking to promote action to remove space debris.

    Joseph Johnson

    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.

    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.

    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.

  • Adam Afriyie – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    Adam Afriyie – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Adam Afriyie on 2016-06-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to support and spread awareness of cyber security insurance amongst businesses.

    Mr Edward Vaizey

    The Government is committed to making the UK one of the safest places in the world to do business online and we recognise the role cyber insurance can play as part of a broader risk management strategy.

    In March 2015 the Government published a report on the joint initiatives between Government and the insurance sector to tackle cyber risk. The report is available here:https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cyber-security-insurance-new-steps-to-make-uk-world-centre

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