Tag: Kevin Brennan

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevin Brennan on 2016-01-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what estimate his Department has made of the potential costs to (a) consumers and (b) the public purse of the privatisation of the Green Investment Bank.

Anna Soubry

The Government is moving UK Green Investment Bank plc (GIB) into private ownership so it can continue operating in the same way it does now only funded with private capital rather than relying on taxpayers’ support. The detailed background and supporting case for this move was set out in the policy statement we published on 18 November.

Decisions on the proposed sale are being taken in accordance with best practice to ensure all available options are properly examined in a detailed business case and that a robust valuation process is followed. We expect taxpayers to gain a receipt to the public purse from a majority sale of GIB, and to benefit from reduced public funding requirements in future.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevin Brennan on 2016-01-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, pursuant to the Answer of 22 January 2016 to Question 23237, if he will place in the Library a list of the recent representations he has received on the privatisation of the Green Investment Bank.

Anna Soubry

The Government does not intend to place a list of the recent representations received on the privatisation of the Green Investment Bank in the Library.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevin Brennan on 2016-01-28.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department will agree to Legislative Consent Motions to the devolved government on the issue of public sector exit payments.

Greg Hands

The public sector exit payment cap will come into effect at a date after the Enterprise Bill has received Royal Assent. The Enterprise Bill is currently expected to receive Royal Assent by May 2016. A set of secondary regulations which will give effect to the public sector exit payment cap are currently expected to come into force during autumn 2016.

In the response to the consultation the Government stated that ‘the government would request Legislative Consent Motions from the Devolved Administrations where appropriate, however it would be for the Devolved Administrations to decide the approach they wish to take to this measure.’

On 7 December 2015 the Northern Ireland Assembly declined to agree a Legislative Consent Motion. Subsequently, no provisions relating to Northern Ireland are included in the clauses relating to exit payments.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevin Brennan on 2016-03-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how much public funding was spent on research and development in each year for which data is available.

Joseph Johnson

The information requested is published annually and can be found on the Office for National Statistics website at the following location:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/researchanddevelopmentexpenditure

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevin Brennan on 2016-03-17.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make it his policy to develop a standardised methodology for measuring SME spending by government departments which can be used as a baseline over the next five years.

Matthew Hancock

We have developed our methodology over time, starting in 2010 when there was no reliable estimate for spend with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We now have much better data than before 2010 and we are continuing to improve our understanding of spend. The Government exceeded its target of 25% of central government procurement spend going to small and medium businesses by 2015, achieving over £12 billion (27.1%) of spend with SMEs by the end of the last Parliament.

The Government standardised its methodology for collecting data on direct spend with SMEs in 2011-12; data on direct spend published since that point is comparable. Data on indirect spend for 2013-14 and 2014-15 is also comparable. This is an area of continuous improvement and we intend to standardise our methodology again during 2016-17.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevin Brennan on 2016-03-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the cost of online retail fraud was to retailers in each year for which data is available.

Karen Bradley

The Home Office does not hold the information requested.

The Home Office runs an annual Commercial Victimisation Survey (CVS) which asks business premises in different sectors about their experience of various crime types, including fraud, in the latest year.

In order to keep the length of the survey, and hence the burden on respondents, to a minimum, businesses are only asked about the cost of the latest incident of each crime type experienced in the year. Therefore, it is not possible to provide an aggregate cost of fraud or overall crime to businesses in the retail sector.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevin Brennan on 2016-03-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps he takes to monitor the economic effect of projects his Department has funded.

Anna Soubry

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has taken a number of steps to embed systematic monitoring of our policies and programmes, including economic effects. The Department’s vision for monitoring and evaluation is outlined in our Evaluation Strategy, found on the GOV.UK website.

In particular:

1. For all new spending the Department ensures fit for purpose monitoring and evaluation plans are embedded before policy implementation.
2. The Department publishes an updated summary of the monitoring and evaluation coverage for each policy area on an annual basis. The BIS Evaluation Plan 2016 was published in January and is the second annual publication of BIS’s evaluation coverage, also found on the GOV.UK website.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevin Brennan on 2016-04-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps he has taken to examine measures other European countries have taken to protect their steel industries against dumping to inform his policies.

Anna Soubry

Anti-dumping policy is agreed at EU level so all EU member states adopt identical trade measures to protect EU industry from dumping. These measures are only imposed following an investigation by the European Commission, which in turn must be prompted by a complaint from European industry. The EU currently has 37 anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures in place on steel and steel products.

As part of the International Comparisons Working Group, established following the Steel Summit on 16 October 2015, the Government has, in conjunction with representatives of the UK steel industry, examined the anti-dumping policies of some non-EU countries. The work was informed, in part, by European Commission’s own evaluation of its trade defence instruments published in 2012[1], which included a detailed comparison of the trade defence policies of other countries.

[1] Evaluation of the European Union’s Trade Defence Instruments. BKP Development and Research 2012. Vol 1 and 2.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevin Brennan on 2016-04-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what meetings and discussions he has had with representaives of the PrescQIPP Programme since May 2015.

Alistair Burt

The Department is not aware of any discussions or meetings the Secretary of State for Health has had with representatives of PrescQIPP.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevin Brennan on 2016-05-18.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he has taken to inform public sector workers of the implications of the public sector exit payment cap.

Greg Hands

The Government announced on 31st July 2015 that it intended to end six-figure exit payments for public sector workers, acting on its manifesto commitment. A public consultation over the summer of 2015 asked for views on the details of the policy, which received over 4,000 replies.

The public sector exit payment cap has now been legislated for in the Enterprise Act. The Government intends to publish draft regulations over the summer setting out the detail of how the policy will be introduced, alongside accompanying guidance. All affected parties, including public sector workers, will have a further opportunity to comment on the regulations and supporting guidance during that time.

The regulations implementing the public sector exit cap will not come into force before 1 October 2016 at the earliest. They will apply to bodies in England and those in Wales where the workforce is not devolved in this context. It will be for Welsh Ministers to determine when they bring into force the regulations in the Enterprise Act for bodies devolved to Wales.