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9 Feb 2010 : Column 956W—continued
Industrial Health and Safety
Grant Shapps: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills if he will place in the Library a copy of the advice issued to staff of his Department on stress recognition and management. [313947]
Mr. McFadden: The Department will arrange for the policy and practices with regards management of stress, and advice to employees, to be placed in the Libraries of the House.
These are the policies/practices used by the former Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory
Reform (BERR); the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) does not at present have harmonised policies/practices from the merging of the former BERR and former Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS). DIUS used policies/practices from the other Government Departments from which they were formed in an earlier machinery of Government change.
Licensing
Mr. Hurd: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how much his Department and its agencies have spent on font licensing in the last three years. [315282]
Mr. McFadden: Two fonts were purchased by the former BERR in 2008/09 at a cost of £40.46.
Fonts which were already in use for printed materials and website use were chosen as the official corporate fonts when BIS was created in July 2009 and also when BERR was created in June 2007.
Minimum Wage: Hemsworth
Jon Trickett: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many of those resident in Hemsworth constituency have been paid at the national minimum wage rate since its introduction. [316621]
Mr. McFadden: Data for earnings are not available at the constituency level because of small sample sizes at this level in the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE).
At the regional level it is not possible to infer the number of employees earning exactly at the national minimum wage (NMW) with sufficient certainty. However it is possible to estimate the number who were paid at or below the NMW.
At the Government office region level the most recent figure from BIS analysis of the 2009 ASHE indicates the number of jobholders who were paid at or below the NMW in April 2009 in the Yorkshire and Humber region was 78,000.
National Star College: Finance
Mr. Drew: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills whether he has had recent discussions with the National Star Centre on its capital programme; and how much funding his Department has allocated to that programme. [316035]
Kevin Brennan: I have frequent meetings with a wide range of college principles as well as regular dialogue with the Association of Colleges, the 157 group and other sector representatives. To date National Star College has received £1.96 million in capital grant support but the College was unsuccessful in the prioritisation exercise carried out by the Learning and Skills Council in 2009.
Capital investment will continue with £1.7 billion invested directly into the FE estate this spending period with a further £900 million already earmarked for the next spending period. The LSC continues to consult the sector through the Association of Colleges Reference Panel to determine how future resource will best be invested.
New Industries: New Jobs
Hywel Williams: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how much he has allocated to the New Industries, New Jobs strategy in (a) 2009-10 and (b) 2010-11; and how much has been allocated to Wales. [315797]
Mr. McFadden [holding answer 5 February 2010]: 'New Industry, New Jobs' is the Government's active industrial strategy, covering cross-economy issues such as skills and innovation as well as sectoral and geographic interventions. It therefore encompasses a broad range of financial instruments.
The Strategic Investment Fund was set at Budget 2009 specifically to underpin 'New Industry, New Jobs'. The SIF aims to support advanced industrial projects of strategic importance. The original fund of £750 million was increased by £200 million in the pre-Budget report in December 2010, and we expect to spend around £200 million by the end of this financial year. The whole fund is to be spent by March 2011.
Much of this money is being distributed through UK wide mechanisms such as the UK Innovation Investment Fund and the Technology Strategy Board. As a UK-wide fund, many of the projects supported by the SIF are themselves UK-wide in geographical scope, as are the expected economic benefits. In addition to UK-wide schemes, there are two specific projects located in Wales. These are a £10 million contribution to a high performance computing centre in South Wales and a SIF contribution to the £340 million announced for repayable launch investment to Airbus, which is benefiting the facility at Broughton in North Wales.
Olympic Games: Canada
Mr. Don Foster: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many (a) Ministers and (b) officials from his Department are planning to attend the winter Olympics in Vancouver in February 2010; and what estimate he has made of the cost of such attendance. [310843]
Mr. McFadden: No Ministers from the Department are planning to attend the winter Olympics in Vancouver. A small number of officials will be attending in an official capacity to deliver a programme of events and activity to promote British business capability, inward investment and partnership opportunities in general (for the UK) as well as business opportunities arising from the London 2012 games. Our 'Host2Host' partnership arrangement with the Province of British Columbia has resulted in a high level of cooperation and cost saving in general regarding our events programme.
Officials will also be taking the opportunity to learn 'business operational activity' during the games both at Provincial and Federal level which will inform UKTI/BIS strategy for activity during the 2012 games. The actual cost for their attendance is not yet available.
Overseas Investment: China
Hywel Williams:
To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what the monetary value was of UK direct investment (a) in
total and (b) in each (i) sector and (ii) industry in China in each of the last five years. [315759]
Ian Lucas: The available data are shown in the following table.
| Industrial activity of foreign affiliates | ||||||
| £ million | ||||||
| Net foreign direct investment flows from the United Kingdom into China | Net FDI international investment position from the United Kingdom in China | |||||
| 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | end 2008 | |
| (1) Indicates that no data were returned (2) Indicates that data are disclosive and cannot be published Source: ONS Business Monitor MA4, Tables 2.3 and 3.3 | ||||||
Sandwell
Mr. Watson: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills if he will set out, with statistical evidence relating as closely as possible to the borough of Sandwell, the effects on that borough of changes to the policies of his Department and its predecessors since 1997. [316474]
Mr. McFadden: The Government have put in place a wide-ranging programme of reform since 1997. Over the decade to 2007 the economic performance of all parts of the UK improved considerably. The policies of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (and its predecessors) have focused on building a competitive economy, delivering prosperity and sustainable economic growth. The regional development agency Advantage West Midlands (AWM) was established by the Government in 1998 to lead economic development work in the west midlands. The implementation of BIS policy in Sandwell has been taken forward primarily by AWM and the Government office for the west midlands, working with Sandwell metropolitan borough council and other local partners. The Government and their regional and local partners have responded vigorously to the global recession, providing assistance to companies and individuals.
Consistent datasets going back to 1997 are not available for all key issues; the following statistics therefore start from the earliest date for which comparable data are available:
(i) The level of skills in Sandwell has improved significantly with the proportion of the working age population qualified to at least NVQ2 level having increased from 31.8 per cent. to 45.0 per cent. between 1999 and 2008. Over the same period the proportion of the working age population qualified to at least NVQ3 increased from 19.8 per cent. to 25.3 per cent. and the proportion qualified to at least NVQ4 increased from 10.2 per cent. to 13.9 per cent.
(ii) The number of businesses registered for VAT increased from 5,385 at the start of 2001 to 6,495 at the beginning of 2008.
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