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22 Feb 2008 : Column 1032W—continued
Mobile Phones: Contracts
Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform whether mobile telephone providers have a statutory obligation to inform their customers when they have reached the end of their mobile contract. [180378]
Malcolm Wicks: Mobile telephone operators are under no statutory obligation to inform their customers when the minimum term of a mobile contract has ended.
Nuclear Power Stations: Decommissioning
Mr. McGrady: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what the timescale is for decommissioning nuclear sites; and what estimate he has made of the prospects for achieving targets set for decommissioning such sites. [187065]
Malcolm Wicks: The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has responsibility for the decommissioning and cleaning up of the historic civil public nuclear sites, including the Magnox nuclear power stations. A life cycle description of each site for which the NDA is responsible, including key decommissioning milestones, is set out in the NDA strategy, which is available on the NDA website at:
Office of Communications: Finance
Mr. Godsiff: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what financial contributions were made by (a) O2, (b) Vodafone, (c) 3, (d) Orange, (e) T-Mobile and (f) Virgin Mobile to Ofcom in the last year for which information is available. [187018]
Malcolm Wicks: The matter raised is the responsibility of the independent regulator, the Office of Communications (Ofcom), which is accountable to Parliament rather than Ministers. Accordingly, I have asked the Chief Executive of Ofcom to reply directly to the hon. Member. Copies of the Chief Executive’s letter will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Offshore Industry: Taxation
Mr. Weir: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform how much the Government paid to (a) the Isle of Man and (b) Northern Ireland in relation to UK Continental Shelf receipts in each year since 2004. [187443]
Malcolm Wicks: The following table shows how much the Government have paid to (a) the Isle of Man and (b) Northern Ireland in respect of a share of UK Continental Shelf receipts since 2004:
| Payments to Isle of Man and Northern Ireland | ||
| £000 | ||
| Financial year | Isle of Man | Northern Ireland |
Power Stations: Carbon Sequestration
Mr. Meacher: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform if he will make it his policy to require the use of carbon capture and storage technology as a condition for approval of the new Kingsnorth power station in Kent. [187032]
Malcolm Wicks [holding answer 21 February 2008]: No decision on the application for consent to build a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth has yet been taken.
Renewable Energy: National Grid
Mr. Swire: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what renewable energy projects have been built which are not connected to the national grid. [186995]
Malcolm Wicks: I am not aware of any large-scale renewable electricity projects that have been built but which are not connected to the national grid.
Microgeneration is used in off-grid applications, for example to power parking meters. There may also be domestic microgeneration projects which remain off-grid due to the property owners' choice. The Department does not hold statistics relating to these projects. As I understand it, larger distributed energy installations that use a private wire network for the distribution and supply of electricity tend to maintain a grid connection, for example to maintain supply in the event of a failure of their own generating plant. These installations could operate in what is known as “island-mode”, using their own generation in the event of a cut in grid supply, but we are not aware of any that choose to operate off grid at all times.
In addition, there are some renewable energy developments, such as renewable heat projects, that do not generate electricity and so do not require connection to the grid.
Sellafield
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what the design capacity of the Sellafield Mox Plant is; and how many tonnes of mixed oxide fuel were manufactured at the plant in each year since it was opened. [188164]
Malcolm Wicks: I am advised by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority that the original design capacity for the Sellafield Mox Plant, based on largely unproven technology, was 120tHM (tonnes heavy metal) per annum. From assessments during uranium commissioning in 2001, this was revised to 72tHM. Justification of the plant was approved in October 2001. Output as finished fuel assemblies has been as follows:
| tHM | |
Telecommunications: Fees and Charges
Sir Michael Spicer: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform whether he has received the report from Ofcom concluding its review of communications providers' additional charges; and if he will make a statement. [185745]
Malcolm Wicks [holding answer 18 February 2008]: The independent regulator the Office of Communications (Ofcom) announced on 6 June 2007 that it would carry out a full review of communications providers' additional charges. Ofcom is accountable to Parliament rather than Ministers. Ofcom expects to announce the conclusions of its review soon, and progress may be monitored on its website: www.ofcom.org.uk.
Utilities: Prices
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what steps the Government have taken to regulate utility bill price increases in the last three years. [182001]
Malcolm Wicks: Neither the Government nor Ofgem regulate overall prices in the energy supply markets, which are competitive markets. Ofgem does regulate charges in monopoly sectors of the energy markets, including transmission and distribution, and these charges form part of consumers' energy bills.
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what steps the Government have taken to encourage energy providers to minimise utility bill price rises. [182002]
Malcolm Wicks: The Government do not interfere in commercial pricing decisions in the energy supply markets, which are competitive markets.
However we are concerned about the impact of higher prices on vulnerable people and we continue to
encourage energy suppliers to adopt social tariffs and to restrict price rises for the most vulnerable. In the Energy White Paper, we called for suppliers to increase their help to vulnerable customers. The level of help has now increased from £40 million to £56 million during winter 2007-08 with around 700,000 households benefiting. All these companies have committed to continuing their programmes of assistance for the next three years.
Wind Power: Licensing
Martin Horwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform pursuant to the answer of 1 February 2008, Official Report, column 699W, on wind power (licensing), what proportion of future offshore renewables applications he expects to be for wind farms generating over 100 MW of power. [187031]
Malcolm Wicks [holding answer 21 February 2008]: The size of future offshore wind farms in development consent applications will depend on the outcome of the Strategic Environmental Assessment on offshore energy currently underway, future Crown Estate competitions for options for site leases and proposals put forward by wind farm developers.
For the Crown Estate’s Round 1 competition in 2001 for demonstration-scale offshore wind farm projects, it was a requirement for proposals to be under 100MW in
scale. Under the Round 2 competition in 2003, for commercial-scale projects, only one lease option was granted for a proposal under 100MW. My Department expects that while some proposals may be for offshore wind farms under 100MW, it is likely that the majority of future offshore wind farm proposals will be over 100MW.
Children, Schools and Families
Sports: Finance
Mr. Hunt: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how much has been drawn down by each local education authority from New Opportunities for PE and Sport funding; and how many projects have received funding. [187491]
Mr. Sutcliffe [holding answer 21 February 2008]: I have been asked to reply.
In England, £495.16 million of the £581.25 million of funding available for the New Opportunities for PE and Sport (NOPES) has been allocated direct to Local authorities. This has helped them to support 1,365 capital projects, developing or refurbishing over 2,300 sports facilities. The following table shows NOPES allocations by local authority; draw-down by local authorities against those allocations; and the numbers of projects and sports facilities supported.
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