Tag: David T. C. Davies

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David T. C. Davies on 2014-06-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, if he will bring forward proposals to encourage households off the mains gas grid to use condensing boilers.

Michael Fallon

The Government fully recognises that Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) and oil, like other fossil fuels, will continue to play a part in the UK’s energy mix, while the way we heat our homes changes. DECC has introduced the domestic renewable heat incentive (RHI) scheme to support renewable heating systems. The domestic RHI is targeted predominately at off gas-grid households, by compensating for the additional costs faced when replacing an oil boiler with a renewable heating system. New incentives for oil and LPG boilers would undermine the balance struck in the design of the RHI, and potentially cause confusion for consumers.

The Energy Company Obligation (ECO) will continue to support oil and LPG condensing boilers for low income and vulnerable households. By February this year around 320,000 households were helped under ECO. We are making changes to ECO to provide a greater incentive for targeting measures at off-gas grid households.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David T. C. Davies on 2014-06-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the Government’s policy is on beak trimming of chickens; and if he will make a statement.

George Eustice

The Mutilations (Permitted Procedures) (England) Regulations 2010 restricts the method used for the routine beak trimming of laying hens to infra-red technology only. The Government is also working with the Beak Trimming Action Group, which includes representatives from industry, welfare groups and scientists, to find ways to manage flocks of birds without the need to beak trim. Defra is currently funding a peer reviewed research study to assess the effectiveness of management strategies in reducing injurious pecking in non-beak trimmed laying hens. The results of this pilot study and all other available evidence will feed into a review in 2015.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David T. C. Davies on 2014-06-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many patients resident in England but receiving health care in Wales have requested that their treatment be delivered in England in the last year.

Jane Ellison

This information is not held by the Department.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David T. C. Davies on 2014-06-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many patients resident in England have requested that their treatment be delivered in Wales in the last three years.

Jane Ellison

This information is not held by the Department.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David T. C. Davies on 2014-05-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions he has had with Freeview about reasons to extend full Freeview services to (a) Monmouth constituency and (b) all other parts of the UK that are currently not provided with such services.

Mr Edward Vaizey

Ofcom estimates that 98.5% of UK households have access to 17 channels including those from the public service broadcasters (PSBs) on the digital terrestrial TV (DTT, or Freeview) platform, and that approximately 90% of UK households are also able to receive additional commercial DTT channels. Around 1.5% of UK households cannot easily receive DTT services with less than 0.5% not able to receive DTT services at all. However, DTT, cable and satellite digital television services together cover practically 100% of UK households, so that in all but the most exceptional of cases, everyone should be able to get digital television by one means or another. As well as subscription services, digital satellite TV offers non-subscription reception options for a one-off equipment and installation cost, but with no on-going monthly payments.

We have had no discussions with Freeview or Digital UK, who manage the DTT platform, about extending services and there are no plans to require broadcasters to improve the DTT coverage levels agreed for digital television switchover in 2006.

Purely commercial DTT services are not subject to the ‘near-universal’ coverage requirements which apply to PSB DTT services, and while the operators of the commercial DTT services were given the opportunity to extend their networks at the time of digital switchover, the operators determined that it was not commercially viable for them to build-out their services to additional transmitter sites.