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23 Jun 2008 : Column 136W—continued
Departmental Planning Permission
Mr. Maude: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what (a) planning applications and (b) licensing applications his Department and its predecessor have submitted in the last 24 months. [210851]
Mr. Thomas: The Department and its predecessor made no planning applications or licensing applications in the last 24 months.
Departmental Publications
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform if he will (a) place in the Library and (b) publish the respective URLs of each of the documents published to coincide with his Department’s nuclear investors conference on 12 June 2008. [212608]
Malcolm Wicks: I have placed in the Library and on my Department’s website copies of the leaflet “New nuclear—creating our low carbon future—investing in the UK” and of our paper “Strategic Siting Assessment—Preview of Nominations and Assessment Process, Draft Exclusionary and Discretionary Criteria and Indicative Timeline”. The URLs for these documents are
Energy
Steve Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform pursuant to paragraph 4.34 of Budget 2008, how much of the £150 million expenditure pledged by the major energy suppliers will be contributed by each supplier. [209910]
Malcolm Wicks: The individual allocations have been calculated by reference to each company’s market share based on customer account numbers. Each supplier has agreed to pay a contribution per customer account. The contribution per customer account is then multiplied by the number of customer accounts “owned” by a supplier to arrive at each supplier’s contribution.
A breakdown of suppliers’ individual contributions cannot be made available as it contains commercially sensitive information and therefore remains confidential between the Department and the energy supplier.
Energy Supply
Mr. Ellwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform pursuant to the Answer of 17 June 2008, Official Report, column 828W, on energy: consumption, what the UK’s total (a) energy consumption and (b) electricity requirement was in each of the last 36 months for which figures are available. [213262]
Malcolm Wicks: The information requested is as follows:
| Total inland energy consumption on a primary fuel input basis (M illion tonnes of oil equivalent ) | Consumption of electricity ( TWh ) | |
| Source: Monthly Tables 1.2 and 5.5 on the BERR Energy website: http://stats.berr.gov.uk/energystats/et1_2.xls and http://stats.berr.gov.uk/energystats/et5_5.xls | ||
Fairtrade Initiative
Mr. Moore: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform pursuant to the answer of 18 February 2008, Official Report, column 441W, on the Fair Trade initiative, how much his Department spent on refreshments for official departmental meetings and engagements in each of the last three financial years; and what percentage of this total was spent on Fair Trade products. [211567]
Mr. Thomas: Over the last three financial years, my Department has a recorded spend of approximately £1 million each year on refreshments for official meetings and engagements. This spend was through our contracted service provider. It is not possible to separate the spend relating to fair trade products.
This figure also includes refreshments for meetings booked by external bodies, including other Government Departments, using our conference facilities. It is not possible to separate this spend from that of BERR's, although we do recover these costs.
Financial Reporting Council
Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform if he will introduce legislative proposals to impose on the Financial Reporting Council a duty of care towards those directly affected by the failure of firms to meet standards of corporate reporting and governance. [209758]
Mr. Thomas: The Government have no such plans.
Company law imposes statutory responsibilities and sanctions on companies and directors in respect of a range of corporate reporting and governance requirements.
Fuels: Industrial Action
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform if he will issue guidance to emergency planning departments on the provision of fuel to essential users during strikes by fuel supply drivers; and what contingency plans emergency planning departments have established to deal with fuel shortages resulting from industrial action. [212158]
Malcolm Wicks: Contingency plans are in place at local level to deal with fuel shortages resulting from events such as industrial action. The National Emergency Plan for Fuel (NEP-F) provides guidance to those responsible for emergency planning on the provision of fuel to essential users such as the emergency services in the event of a significant disruption to fuel supplies. The NEP-F was not utilised during the industrial action involving Shell, Hoyer and Unite.
G8
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what proposals the United Kingdom plans to put to the meeting of G8 energy ministers on 6th June. [209156]
Malcolm Wicks:
On 8 June 2008, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State attended the G8 Energy Ministers’ meetings at Aomori in Japan. This was the
first ever meeting of G8 Energy Ministers with their counterparts from China, India and the Republic of Korea. Discussion covered a wide range of issues relating to world energy security and combating global climate change.
I am placing a copy of the statements issued at the end of the meeting in the Libraries of the House.
A call for enhanced dialogue and cooperation between oil producers and consumers.
Recognition that open, transparent markets and fair, effective and efficient regulation are critical to reducing uncertainties and promoting investment.
Affirmation by the participant countries of the need to maximise investment in their own domestic oil production, coupled with a call on other oil producers to increase investment to keep markets well supplied in response to rising world demand.
Establishment of the International Partnership for Energy Efficiency Co-operation (IPEEC)—a groundbreaking co-operation between the G8, China, India and the Republic of Korea (membership is also open to other countries).
An undertaking to accelerate efficient and lower carbon technology research, development and demonstration. G8 commitment to implementation of the International Energy Agency(IEA)’s 25 recommendations for promoting energy efficiency.
G8 support for the launch of 20 large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration projects globally by 2010 with a view to supporting technology development and cost reduction for the beginning of the broad deployment of CCS by 2020.
A number of these agreements result from the IEA’s G8 Gleneagles work programme, which was developed and agreed during the UK’s G8 presidency. The full conclusions of the agency’s work will be reported to the G8 summit in Hokkaido next month.
International Energy Forum
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what involvement the United Kingdom had in the International Energy Forum held in Rome in April. [211945]
Malcolm Wicks: The UK played a full part in the International Energy Forum (IEF) in Rome in April. It was involved in the preparations for the event in its role as a member of the executive board of the IEF Secretariat. Then I led the UK delegation to the forum itself, where I chaired one of the four main sessions of the event on the topic ‘Towards a Sustainable Energy Future’. I held bilateral discussions with other Energy Ministers and gave a number of media interviews.
We were very pleased with the outcome of the forum and its main conclusions which were:
To call on relevant organisations to explore the understanding of energy market fundamentals and the impact of financial markets;
To ask the IEF Secretariat to prepare a report focusing on actions to remove key uncertainty factors holding back energy investment;
To promote increased cooperation between international oil companies (IOCs), national oil companies (NOCs) and service companies
To encourage renewed technology transfer and collaboration between producing and consuming countries;
To reaffirm support for the Joint Oil Data Initiative (JODI) and the importance of increasing transparency in the oil market.
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