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12 Nov 2009 : Column 660W—continued
Departmental Home Working
David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change how many staff of his Department have been authorised to work from home in the last 12 months. [297740]
Joan Ruddock: DECC operates a flexible working policy so that all staff are able to work from home for some of the working week if they wish, subject to business need and with the prior approval of their manager. The guidance for staff is available on the HR intranet.
Departmental Official Cars
Mr. Heald: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what the cost of provision of Government cars to special advisers in his Department was in the last 12 months. [299586]
Joan Ruddock: No special advisers are provided with an allocated Government car and driver. As with all civil servants, special advisers may use an official car or taxi in properly defined circumstances.
Departmental Pay
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change how much was claimed in reimbursable expenses by press officers in his Department in 2008-09. [299286]
Joan Ruddock: It has not proved possible to reply to the hon. Member before Prorogation.
Departmental Political Activities
Mr. Don Foster: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change pursuant to the answer of 27 October 2009, Official Report, column 278W, on party conferences, how much the (a) Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and (b) Chair of the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group spent sending representatives to attend each of the party political conferences in 2009; and whether prior permission was sought from the Cabinet Office for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. [298683]
Mr. Kidney: The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) spent approximately £2,000 in total sending representatives to attend the party political conferences in 2009. The NDA considered Cabinet Office guidance on attending party conferences and in line with that guidance sought permission of its sponsoring department, the Department of Energy and Climate Change, before attending the conferences.
The total amount claimed by the Chair of the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group for attending the party conferences was £658.20.
Departmental Postal Services
David T.C. Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what percentage of postal services provided for his Department were provided by (a) Royal Mail and (b) other postal service providers (i) between the establishment of his Department's correspondence unit and 30 June 2009 and (ii) after 1 July 2009. [298775]
Joan Ruddock: Since DECC's inception on 3 October 2008, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) manage the Department's estate, including mail services.
For Whitehall Place approximately 75 per cent. of services were provided by Royal Mail and 25 per cent. by UK Mail. This percentage relates to both 3 October to 30 June 2008 and after July 2009. These figures are exclusive of the interdepartmental mail service.
All standard mail for Atholl House is sent via Royal Mail and time critical (courier) items/parcels are sent via Parcelforce. The volumes for Royal Mail are not known. In terms of Parcelforce 144 items were sent from Atholl House between October 2008 and June 2009. 73 have been sent between July and October this year.
Mr. Scott: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what percentage of postal services provided for his Department were provided by (a) Royal Mail and (b) other postal service providers (i) between the establishment of his Department's correspondence unit and 30 June 2009 and (ii) after 1 July 2009. [298776]
Joan Ruddock: Since DECC's inception on 3 October 2008, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) manage the Department's estate, including mail services.
For Whitehall Place, approximately 75 per cent. of services were provided by Royal Mail and 25 per cent. by UK Mail. This percentage relates to both 3 October 2008 to 30 June 2008 and after July 2009. These figures are exclusive of the interdepartmental mail service.
All standard mail for Atholl house is sent via Royal Mail and time critical (courier) items/parcels are sent via Parcelforce. The volumes for Royal Mail are not known. In terms of Parcelforce, 144 items were sent from Atholl house between October 2008 and June 2009. 73 have been sent between July and October this year.
Mr. Graham Stuart: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change with which providers his Department had a contract to provide postal services in (a) 2007, (b) 2008, (c) between 1 January 2009 and 1 July 2009 and (d) since 1 July 2009. [299427]
Joan Ruddock: It has not proved possible to reply to the hon. Member before Prorogation.
Departmental Procurement
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change whether there has been any nugatory cost to his Department on procurement under tender because the tender process had been cancelled prior to the award of the contract in the last 12 months. [299348]
Joan Ruddock: It has not proved possible to reply to the hon. Member before Prorogation.
Departmental Statistics
Chris Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what proportion of the statistical datasets collected by his Department are published. [299669]
Joan Ruddock: As a matter of course, DECC publishes all of its datasets which meet the definition of 'official statistics' set out in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. The statistics are published in accordance with the requirements set out in the "Code of Practice for Official Statistics" and the "National Statistician's Guidance on the Presentation and Publication of Official Statistics".
Departmental Training
Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what steps his Department is taking to raise the level of technical expertise of officials of his Department. [299765]
Joan Ruddock: It has not proved possible to reply to the hon. Member before Prorogation.
Departmental Travel
Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change how many miles (a) Ministers and (b) officials in his Department have travelled by (i) car, (ii) rail and (iii) air on Government business in each year since his Department's creation. [298538]
Joan Ruddock: The information requested could not be provided within the disproportionate cost limit.
Departmental Visits Abroad
David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change how much his Department has spent on overnight accommodation for (a) Ministers and (b) officials while overseas since its establishment. [294679]
Joan Ruddock: It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member before Prorogation.
Dungeness B Power Stations
Charles Hendry: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what assessment he has made of the safety implications of the incident at Dungeness B on 29 June 2009. [297785]
Mr. Kidney: An investigation into the incident by the Health and Safety Executive's (HSE's) Nuclear Directorate is continuing. It is therefore not possible at this stage to evaluate all the implications for nuclear safety to arise from the incident. However, immediate actions for safety in the fuel route have been identified and addressed by British Energy, the operator of the Dungeness B facility. Issues requiring further attention have been identified by the Nuclear Directorate from its investigation so far, and these have been communicated to British Energy. These relate to British Energy's safety management systems. The outcome of Nuclear Directorate's investigation will be published on HSE's website.
Electricity
Mr. Moss: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what his most recent estimate is of unserved electricity demand in the five years from 2016. [298377]
Mr. Kidney: The most recent estimate was published on 9 November alongside the response to the consultation on a Framework for the Development of Clean Coal. Figure 32 in the technical annex of "Carbon Capture and Storage demonstration: analysis of policies on coal/CCS and financial incentive schemes" shows an average expected energy unserved of 0.3 GWh over the five years. The publication is available on the DECC website.
Electricity Generation
Mr. Lilley:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what estimate he has made of the proportion of electricity generated (a) in total and (b)
from offshore wind farms was lost in transmission to final users in the latest period for which figures are available. [299336]
Joan Ruddock: The latest figures on transmission losses are available in the report published by National Grid in June 2008 "Investigation into transmission losses in the UK electricity transmission system". The report is available from the link
The proportion of electricity generated lost in transmission is estimated at 2 per cent. of the total energy transferred across the network, the out-turn of transmission losses is estimated at 6.9 TWh for 20082009.
There are no specific figures available for the proportion of the electricity generated from offshore wind farms lost in transmission to final users. Such losses will vary depending on a range of factors such as location and size of wind farms as well as the distance of the wind farm to the onshore grid.
Electricity: Meters
Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change for what reasons conventional electricity meters are still being installed by energy companies. [299055]
Mr. Kidney: Conventional domestic electricity meters are replaced when they reach the end of their approved certification life. The approved certification life of a meter is based on prescribed accuracy standards under the responsibility of the National Measurement Office. Periodically a sample of each meter type will be taken out of service and tested for accuracy. If a meter type remains within a defined accuracy tolerance of +2.5 to -3.5 per cent., the certification life of that meter type may be extended and the relevant meters can remain in service for another defined period of time.
These procedures are in place to ensure consumers are billed accurately for the electricity they use, but also so that accurate meters can remain in service for as long as they are compliant with meter accuracy requirements.
Energy Supply
John Hemming: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what the Government's policy is on whether the UK should have a continually increasing supply of oil and gas. [297652]
Mr. Kidney: The central scenario in DECC's recent 'Low Carbon Transition Plan' projects that gas use has already peaked and will now decline. The same scenario for oil projects oil use increasing slightly until 2013 after which it will also decline gradually. There are necessarily significant uncertainties around this scenario and a range of sensitivities could be considered.
Energy: Government Assistance
Lindsay Roy: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what assistance with energy costs the Government provides to those diagnosed with cancer. [298885]
Mr. Kidney [holding answer 9 November 2009]: The Government's fuel poverty policies are targeted at vulnerable households in receipt of specific benefits. Cancer patients in receipt of benefits-whether income or pension-related, with children under 16 or on disability living allowance, will qualify for additional heating and energy efficiency help under the Warm Front Scheme. In addition, any household can qualify for subsidised energy saving measures from energy supply companies under the Government's carbon emissions reduction target.
Energy: Prices
Dr. Cable: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what estimate he has made of the cost of social tariffs to (a) energy companies and (b) consumers currently on standard tariffs. [298060]
Mr. Kidney: Ofgem monitors the energy suppliers' social programmes on behalf of Government. Their latest report, published 18 August 2009, gave details of suppliers spend from 1 April 2008 to 31 March 2009. This showed that the total spend across all suppliers on social programmes in 2008-09 was £157 million, compared with the £100 million agreed under the voluntary agreement.
Ofgem also report that £130 million of this total spend was attributable to social tariffs and have made an estimate that this represented an average cost of £2.73 per customer account for that year. However, this is an estimate which is based on a customer with average consumption and assumes suppliers apportion these costs equally across all their customers.
A copy of the Ofgem report can be found online at:
Energy: Taxation
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change pursuant to the answer of 4 March 2009, Official Report, column 1670, on windfall taxes on energy companies, whether he has obtained the BBC transcript to which reference is made. [298354]
Mr. Kidney: No. The BBC has been unable to provide a transcript answering the description provided by the hon. Member.
EU Emissions Trading Scheme
Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme in incentivising a reduction in the carbon emissions of businesses in (a) the UK, (b) the EU and (c) other countries. [299830]
Joan Ruddock:
We published our review of the 2008 results of the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) on 24 September 2009. This shows that like for like emissions in the UK were 4.5 per cent. (1 11MtC02e) below 2007 levels. Across the EU, emissions were 55MtC02e below 2007 levels. In addition, companies in the EU ETS used international project credits for compliance,
helping fund 82MtC02e of abatement from other countries. The full results can be found at:
The level of climate change ambition in the EU ETS is driven by the emissions cap. Across the EU, the cap in 2008-12 is 6 per cent. below 2005 emission levels. With an EU target for 2020 of a 20 per cent. reduction in emissions on 1990 levels, the EU ETS cap is set at 21 per cent. below 2005 levels by 2020.
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