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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 2016-04-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what efficiency savings his Department expects to make from the closure of its Sheffield office at St Paul’s Place.

    Joseph Johnson

    The proposed closure of the Sheffield office is one part of a larger programme to deliver a new business model and reduce operating spending by £350m by 2020. Non-cashable efficiency savings would be realised through closer working, more collaborative and flexible teams. Cashable savings will be realised from reduced travel, rents and overnight accommodation. Further cashable savings would be achieved through reduction in headcount, but such reductions have yet to be decided pending the conclusion of the consultation.

  • 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 2016-04-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what estimate he has made of potential savings to his Department’s budget that will arise from the closure of its Sheffield office at St Paul’s Place other than by reduction in headcount.

    Joseph Johnson

    The proposed closure of the Sheffield office would result in permanent savings from reduced travel, rents and overnight accommodation. The Department estimates the current annual cost of these at £500k (travel), £890k (rent) and £150k (hotel stays). These savings would be independent of any decision on headcount reductions, on which we are still consulting. All savings would be net of any one-off transitional costs. There would also be non-cashable efficiency savings resulting from closer working, and more collaborative and flexible teams.

  • 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 2016-04-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what estimate he has made of potential savings to his Department’s budget that will arise from reduction in headcount as a result of the closure of its Sheffield office at St Paul’s Place.

    Joseph Johnson

    We cannot at this time provide an estimate of overall savings to BIS’ budget arising from headcount in the event that a decision to close the HQ office in St Paul’s Place is taken. Since the consultation was launched in February we have started to work through the likely associated costs of different options, recognising that final decisions on headcount have not yet been taken. Our internal work uses the annual costs of running the Sheffield office to illustrate the range of permanent, annual savings under different scenarios for staff replacement. This did not consider the one-off costs of transition including redundancies, which remain subject to decisions following the conclusion of the consultation. As we have previously indicated, our London headcount will decrease by 2020 and we have committed to making overall operating expense savings of £350m, of which this will form a part.

  • 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 2016-04-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what estimate he has made of the level of his Department’s budget for estates after completion of the BIS 2020 change programme.

    Joseph Johnson

    Detailed plans are being developed across the BIS estate. An initial estimate is that some £40M savings in office estate could be achieved. This depends on a range of other factors.

  • 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 2016-04-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what process his Department will adopt for evaluating responses received to the consultation on proposals to move all policy roles to the 1 Victoria Street office in London and close the St Paul’s Place office in Sheffield.

    Joseph Johnson

    The BIS Executive Board will take account of all consultation responses from the Departmental Trades Unions and staff when they decide whether to proceed with proposals to move policy roles to London and to close the Sheffield office.

  • 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 2016-04-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps he is taking to support research into and development of machine learning.

    Joseph Johnson

    The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills supports the research and development of machine learning through the Research Councils, for example the current Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council portfolio contains nearly 150 research and training grants involving aspects of artificial intelligence.

    The Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Hartree Centre uses high performance computing combined with big data analytics, cognitive computing and visualisation techniques to collaborate with industry and research partners. The latest government investment of £113 million at Hartree in a cognitive and data centric computing centre (announced in the 2014 Autumn Statement) has attracted inward investment from IBM and other hi-tech industry exceeding £200 million.

    Research Councils also support existing machine learning applications, for example the Medical Research Council support programmes which involve the use of machine learning tools for image analysis and in analysing and predicting risk of Serious Adverse Events for hospital patients.

    The Arts and Humanities Research Council also support aspects of research and development on machine learning relating to its importance within the rapidly emerging field of the digital humanities and issues relating to ethical, philosophical, legal and historical perspectives of machine learning and human-computer interactions.

  • Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-04-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, pursuant to the Answer of 25 February 2016 to Question 27772, if he will provide that data on overseas and UK-based ownership of property for each of those areas and in each of those categories in each financial year between 1997-98 and 2015-16.

    Anna Soubry

    The information will take time to collate. I will place this in the Libraries of the House as soon as the information is available.

  • Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-04-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will estimate the number of businesses which have a mental health workplace policy.

    Alistair Burt

    The information is not collected centrally.

    Public Health England endorses the Workplace Wellbeing Charter National Award for England which is a scheme that recognises the commitment of organisations to promoting wellbeing in the workplace. Over 1,000 organisations in England hold the award.

  • Andrew Bridgen – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Andrew Bridgen – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Bridgen on 2016-04-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, which regulations he has asked the EU Commission to (a) amend and (b) repeal on the basis of their effects on businesses in the UK.

    Anna Soubry

    The Government regularly presses the European Commission to amend or repeal EU rules in order to minimise the regulatory burdens imposed on UK business.

    In particular, we do this through the European Commission’s Regulatory Fitness (REFIT) programme – established in 2012 to review the stock of existing EU legislation in order to identify burdens, inconsistencies, gaps or ineffective measures and address them. This has generated progress in areas of significant UK priority, including Occupational Health and Safety and the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) – where the Commission’s 2016 Work Programme put forward burden-cutting proposals

    Overall, the Commission’s 2015 and 2016 Work Programmes proposed 100 withdrawals or modifications of pending proposals, and 39 repeals and 56 evaluations of existing EU laws.

    As part of the UK’s settlement with the EU, the European Commission is committed to reviewing the burden of regulation each year and introducing specific targets to reduce costs for businesses in the most burdensome areas.

  • Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-04-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what his policy is on the increase of fees for (a) statutory and (b) non-statutory functions of the Land Registry above (i) operating costs and (ii) inflation in the event that the Land Registry is privatised under the Government’s preferred model of privatisation with a contract between Government and a private operator.

    Anna Soubry

    Under a contract-based approach, fees would still be prescribed in fee orders made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and set before Parliament. Under a regulator-based approach, fees would be controlled by the regulator.