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23 Jun 2009 : Column 867W—continued
Departmental Responsibilities
Gregory Barker: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills which section of his Department has lead responsibility for trade and export promotion of renewable energy. [280329]
Ian Lucas: UK Trade and Investment, which is a joint operation of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, continues to promote the UK renewable energy industries internationally. UKTI's Energy Team, based in Glasgow, does this in close partnership with the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which, through the organisation UK Renewables, supports the development of the renewables supply chain in the UK.
Dietary Supplements: Channel Islands
Dr. Iddon: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (1) what information his Department holds on the systems Royal Mail has in place to monitor the content of mail order catalogues from health food manufacturers distributing products from the Channel Islands who have previously breached the requirements of the Advertising Standards Agency’s Committee on Advertising Practice code; [281104]
(2) what information his Department holds on action taken by Royal Mail against health food manufacturers operating from the Channel Islands whose mail order catalogues were found to be in breach of the requirements of the Advertising Standards Agency’s Committee on Advertising Practice code in the last 12 months. [281105]
Mr. McFadden: The Department is not aware that Royal Mail has any such systems in place.
There are no specific powers in the Postal Services Act 2000 to control direct-mail advertising from the Channel Islands. Royal Mail is legally obliged to deliver all mail to given addresses and has no control over the contents of postal packets or letters which have been properly posted, paid for and correctly addressed.
EU Internal Trade
Mr. Hayes: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what estimate he has made of the amount saved by UK companies on tariffs on exports to EU countries consequent upon the UK’s EU membership in the last 10 years. [277114]
Ian Lucas: No estimate has been made because there is a lot of uncertainty as to what tariff and non-tariff barriers UK exporters to the EU would face if the UK were not a member. It is likely that even the UK was not a member, it would have some preferential access to EU markets, but this could be in several forms.
In the extreme or worst case scenario UK businesses could be forced to pay the most favoured nation tariff (the tariff applied to countries with no preferential access) to export to the EU. Higher tariff and non tariff barriers in this scenario would decrease the competitiveness of UK exports in the EU, and therefore would likely reduce the volume of trade taking place—meaning a greater loss of jobs and business opportunities for UK companies.
The UK would therefore have the incentive to enter some sort of free trade agreement with the EU. Such agreements remove tariffs for the majority of goods but vary greatly in the extent to which they remove non-tariff barriers. These include differences in regulations (health and safety regulations for example) which make exporting to the EU more costly. They vary also greatly in the extent to which they cover other areas of great economic importance like trade in services, investment, intellectual property matters, migration, competition issues as well as public procurement.
In the best case scenario, the UK would still enjoy full access to the single market like the members of the European free trade area. That would mean however that it would have to take on board all EU regulations
linked to the single market now and in the future, with no influence on designing them. Just like Norway, the UK would probably also have to contribute financially to continue benefiting from this access.
Calculating the costs imposed on UK businesses under all of these possible outcomes could be done only at disproportionate cost.
Insolvency
Mr. Sanders: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what estimate his Department has made of the proportion of business failures in the last 12 months attributable to late payments; and what steps his Department is taking to reduce the incidence of such failures. [279985]
Ian Lucas: The Insolvency Service routinely publishes information on the profile of companies that enter compulsory liquidation including causes of failure. The latest report, published in May, covers the period 2005/06 to 2007/08 and therefore information on causes of failure in the last 12 months is not yet available but will be issued in due course.
While figures specifically considering late payments are not available, among those companies entering compulsory liquidation in 2007/08 the most common causes of failure were a loss of market (22 per cent. of cases) and management failure (20.4 per cent.). Financial difficulties were identified as the primary cause of failure in 13.4 per cent. of compulsory liquidations and bad debts were cited in 11.1 per cent. of cases. The failure of a company was attributed to the knock on effect from the failure of another business in 4.1 per cent. of compulsory liquidations.
Insolvency: Ports
Robert Neill: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what records the Insolvency Service holds on the number of firms in ports which have gone into administration in the last six months. [279898]
Ian Lucas: There is insufficient, detailed information held centrally, and in a readily available format, to provide an answer to this question. This is because:
firms in ports is not a standard industry classification and therefore is not recorded; and
addresses are not available to count companies giving a port as part of their address.
Iraq
Dr. Fox: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many civil servants from his Department are based in (a) Basra, (b) Baghdad, (c) Erbil and (d) other locations in Iraq. [279965]
Ian Lucas: UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) has three permanent positions in Baghdad, consisting of one UK based officer and two locally engaged staff.
Alongside the full time staff allocation, UKTI is currently employing two business consultants in Iraq on contracts that run through to the end of July and August 2009.
Currently there are no civil servants from this Department based in Basra. However the situation is currently being reviewed.
There are no plans to recruit positions in Erbil or other locations in Iraq.
LDV
Gordon Banks: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what recent discussions he has had with the administrators of LDV Group on the future of the business. [281615]
Ian Lucas [holding answer 22 June 2009]: I have not had any discussions with the Administrators of LDV.
Motor Vehicles: Manufacturing Industries
Mrs. Moon: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills whether the car scrappage scheme applies to mobility-supplied vehicles which are over 10 years old. [278838]
Ian Lucas: Under the scheme motorists are being offered a discount of £2,000 on a new car or van if they trade in vehicles for scrappage that they have owned for 12 or more months and which were registered in the UK before 31 August 1999. Motability supplied vehicles which meet the criteria of the scheme are eligible.
Mr. Watson: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what recent discussions he has had with representatives of (a) Jaguar Land Rover and (b) Morgan Motor Company Ltd. on the automotive industry in the West Midlands; and if he will make a statement. [279356]
Ian Lucas: Ministers and officials have been in regular dialogue with representatives of Jaguar Land Rover as well as a range of other companies in the west midlands, to discuss how best to provide the support the industry needs. Ministers from the then BERR visited Morgan last August.
Officials also attended a JLR supplier event at Gaydon in early May. The event led directly to new interest in support available from Government. Following a series of workshops chaired by automotive assistance programme officials there have been additional dialogue/meetings and some expressions of interest.
Stewart Hosie: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many loans have been made to the automotive industry under the Automotive Assistance Programme since the programme became operational; and what the monetary value of such loans is. [280003]
Ian Lucas: We are currently in detailed discussions with a number of businesses about their applications for funding under the Automotive Assistance Programme (AAP).
There have been more than 70 further requests for information on the scheme with the AAP team working with companies resulting in around 18 approaches being developed into detailed discussions with BIS for serious applications, and there are others in the pipeline.
The details of support to companies are commercially sensitive and subject to agreement. As a general rule the Government’s intention is to offer loan guarantees, though there is scope under the programme to offer loans as well.
Mr. Willis: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills whether cars which are 10 years old and which were first registered on the Isle of Man and are now registered in the UK are eligible for the car scrappage scheme. [281128]
Ian Lucas [holding answer 18 June 2009]: If the car was registered in the UK on or before 31 August 1999 and is registered in the UK now, then it is eligible provided all the other conditions of the scheme are met.
Lorely Burt: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many redundancies in the automotive sector have been notified to his Department and its predecessor in each month since January 2009. [281616]
Ian Lucas [holding answer 22 June 2009]: The number of advance notifications of proposed redundancies received between 1 January 2009 and 18 June 2009 for the automotive sector are as follows:
| Establishment | Proposed redundancies | |
Motor Vehicles: Research
Mr. Watson: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what steps he is taking to promote research and development within the automotive industry. [279354]
Ian Lucas:
The Technology Strategy Board’s (TSB) low carbon vehicle innovation platform provides more
than £100 million for research, development and demonstration, including the ultra-low carbon vehicle demonstrator programme.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has supported the establishment of Cenex. This is a delivery agency to promote UK market development and competitiveness in low carbon and fuel cell technologies for transport applications. Cenex’s principal focus is on catalysing market transformation projects linking technology providers and end users. As part of this work, it runs a number of programmes for UK national and regional Government, including the low carbon vehicle procurement programme and the low carbon and fuel cell technology knowledge transfer network.
On 27 January 2009, Government announced the automotive assistance package (AAP). This series of measures was state aid cleared on 27 February. The primary aim of this package of up to £2.3 billion is to support the continued delivery of investment that will create or sustain jobs, develop cutting-edge technology, bring special value to the UK, reduce CO2 emissions and maintain R and D in UK vehicle manufacturing.
The Government-facilitated, industry led new automotive innovation and growth team (NAIGT) published its report on 6 May. Key recommendations aimed at both industry and Government, included proposals to focus the UK automotive R and D agenda around a new industry-consensus technology roadmap. The Government’s intention is to publish its formal response to the NAIGT report during the summer.
North East Regional Development Agency
Robert Neill: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills which (a) festivals and (b) other events the North East Regional Development Agency has undertaken to support or sponsor through the culture10 Partnership; and what sums have been allocated in each case. [279899]
Ms Rosie Winterton: Details of the investments proposed by all partners of the Culture 10 Programme (including One NorthEast) in 2009-10 are tabled as follows:
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