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30 Mar 2010 : Column 1008W—continued
Departmental Legal Costs
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change how much his Department has spent in (a) legal fees and (b) compensation on legal cases concerning remuneration of its employees since it was established. [322058]
Joan Ruddock: The Department has spent nothing on such legal fees or compensation.
Departmental Manpower
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what estimate he has made of the proportion of staff of his Department and its predecessors managed out in the last five years who remain working in the public sector. [313844]
Joan Ruddock: The term 'managed out' is not used within the civil service, so we have considered this question as applying to redundancies.
DECC does not record whether staff who have been made redundant have remained working in the public sector.
Departmental Official Hospitality
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what the five most expensive hospitality events hosted by his Department were since its inception; and what the (a) cost and (b) purpose of each such event was. [324668]
Joan Ruddock: The Department has not hosted any hospitality events.
Departmental Written Questions
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what methodology his Department used to determine whether answers to questions in the formulation if he will set out with statistical information related as directly as possible to the tabling hon. Member's constituency the effects on that constituency of his Department's policies since 1997 could be provided without incurring disproportionate cost; and if he will make a statement. [323862]
Joan Ruddock: The Department of Energy and Climate Change has implemented policies to address greenhouse gas emissions, fuel poverty, the low carbon economy and energy security. The Department does not have readily-available data at the constituency level for the impact of these policies with the exception of Warm Front, for which data have been provided. This practical limitation means that preparing an estimate at the constituency level or a similar level of regional disaggregation would incur disproportionate costs above the £800 limit for answering a parliamentary question.
The Warm Front Scheme is designed to tackle fuel poverty. The scheme provides grants for households on qualifying income and disability related benefits to install a range of insulation and heating measures in their homes. Information is available from eaga, the scheme manager, on a constituency level. During the period 1 June 2000 to 31 January 2010 the Scheme has assisted 2,557 households in the Eddisbury constituency.
Regional greenhouse gas emissions
Climate change mitigation needs to be tackled at both national and local levels. Estimates of carbon dioxide emissions at local authority level are produced annually by AEA on behalf of DECC and are published as national statistics at the following link:
There are practical considerations which mean that emissions data are not calculated at a constituency-level.
Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT)
The CERT is set at a Great Britain-wide level. Given the terms of the legislation, Government have no existing powers to require energy suppliers to report where they have installed measures. However, DECC is working with energy suppliers and the Energy Saving Trust with the aim of being able to report on the number of CERT measures professionally installed at a constituency level in future.
A number of DECC's policies operate at the national rather than local level, which means that data at a constituency level is not gathered. For example, national policy statements on energy infrastructure will lead to faster and fairer planning across the country and a diverse low carbon energy mix.
In addition, some policies are not yet fully operational or are too new for their effect to be measured. The Community Energy Savings Programme (CESP) began on 1 September 2009 and there are currently six live CESP schemes, one in Walsall, one in Bristol and four in Birmingham. We expect around 100 schemes nationally over the next three years. Ofgem is due to provide its first statutory CESP progress report to the Secretary of State on 1 May 2010. The feed-in tariff and renewable heat incentive 'clean energy cashback' schemes will begin on April 2010 and April 2011 respectively.
Energy
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change with reference to paragraph 5.4, page 44 of his Department's report on Energy Market Assessment of 24 March 2010, what criteria will be used to identify interested parties with which to enter into a dialogue in the next stage of consultation. [325160]
Mr. Kidney: The Department for Energy and Climate Change has ongoing dialogue with a wide range of groups ranging from energy investors, the regulatory community, economic and strategy consultancies, green NGOs, consumer groups, the Committee on Climate Change and others.
The Department will discuss the energy market assessment with organisations from across this spectrum.
Energy Supply
Gregory Barker: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what response he plans to make to the Project Discovery report published by Ofgem on 3 February 2010. [325263]
Mr. Kidney: On 12 March we announced that funding has been awarded to E.on and Scottish Power to support Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) studies as part of the competition to build a commercial scale carbon capture and storage demonstration plant. The studies will be completed within 12 months, after which the winner will be selected.
Energy: Billing
Mr. Austin Mitchell:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what mechanisms will be used to ensure that energy suppliers do not charge their
customers more than the cost of what they pay towards meeting their Carbon Emissions Reduction Target obligations onto the consumer; and if he will make a statement. [324866]
Joan Ruddock: The Government's 'Warm Homes, Greener Homes' strategy published in early March set out the importance of greater transparency of energy bills, including around cost information. We continue to develop the detail of this post 2013 energy company obligation, and will pursue new powers as necessary.
Energy: Buildings
Hugh Bayley: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change how many (a) local authority and (b) housing association homes in City of York constituency have had energy efficiency improvements in each of the last five years; and what the average cost per dwelling to the public purse of those improvements was. [324219]
Joan Ruddock: The Government have set the Decent Homes Standard, whereby social landlords are challenged to make homes warm and weather proof, with modern facilities. The following table shows the number of local authority homes in the City of York that have had energy efficiency improvements in the last five years and the total cost of these improvements.
| Number of LA dwellings that had central heating, windows and insulation installed, and associated expenditure, City of York, 2005-09 | ||||||
| Central Heating | Windows | Insulation | ||||
| Dwellings | Expenditure (£000) | Dwellings | Expenditure (£000) | Dwellings | Expenditure (£000) | |
| Source: Annual returns to Communities and Local Government. | ||||||
It is not possible to derive average costs per dwelling since not all dwellings will have had all three elements of works carried out. The Government do not collect data about housing association expenditure.
Energy: Conservation
Mr. David Anderson: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what estimate he has made of the cost per kilogram of carbon dioxide saved for the different types of commercially available domestic energy efficient technologies, including circulator pumps; and if he will make a statement. [324214]
Joan Ruddock: This question was considered in the recent CERT extension impact assessment, which can be accessed via the link provided(1). The cost per kilogram of carbon dioxide saved can be determined for a range of technologies from the information provided in tables 1 and 2. The cost per kilogram can be determined by dividing the total cost for the measure, shown in table 2, by the relevant life time carbon dioxide savings shown in table 1 (multiply the figures shown in table 1 by 1,000 to obtain kilograms of carbon dioxide). The Department does not hold this information for circulator pumps.
(1) This information was extracted from pages 55 and 56 of die Impact Assessment for the CERT consultation and can be accessed via the following link:
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