Sustainable Development: Cabinet Committees
Barry Gardiner: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office which Cabinet sub-committee is responsible for considering the business plans of Government Departments in relation to sustainable development principles. [84033]
Mr Letwin:
As the Minister responsible for Government policy, I have been asked to respond. As part of her lead responsibility for sustainable development, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman), sits on the Economic Affairs, Home Affairs and Reducing Regulation Committees, to enforce the Government's commitment to sustainability across policy making. In
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addition, working closely with the Secretary of State, I hold Departments to account through the quarterly business plan review process.
Business, Innovation and Skills
Apprentices
John Robertson: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills how many apprenticeships his Department plans to offer in each of the next four years. [81508]
Mr Hayes: The Department has not set itself future numerical targets for apprenticeships as we have been going through a period of restructure and reducing staff numbers. However, I remain strongly committed to the programme and will continue to support its use to up-skill staff.
Apprenticeships in BIS will be linked to specific jobs and individuals' skills needs. The Department has supported 14 new apprenticeships since April 2011.
Chris Leslie: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills how many apprenticeship starts have been filled by an (a) employee new to the businesses and (b) existing employee in 2010-11. [83473]
Mr Hayes: Following the Apprenticeship, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 all apprentices have to be employed. We do not have information available on the number of apprenticeship starts that were employees new to the business or existing employees.
The Individualised Learner Record (ILR) records whether an apprentice has an ‘employed’ status on the day before they started their learning aim. But it does not provide detailed information to identify the length of time an apprentice has had an ‘employed’ status or whether they have moved to a new employer to start their apprenticeship programme. Employers may also delay starting employees onto an apprenticeship programme for a variety of reasons, including probationary periods. In these cases the apprentice may be recorded as ‘employed’ on the day before they started their apprenticeship, but they could still be new to the business.
In the 2010/11 academic year, provisional data show that 404,000 apprenticeship starts were recorded on the ILR as having an ‘employed’ status on the day before they started their learning aim.
Information on the number of apprenticeship starts is published in a quarterly Statistical First Release (SFR). The latest SFR was published on 27 October 2011:
http://www.thedataservice.org.uk/statistics/statisticalfirstrelease/sfr_current
An apprentice pay survey, undertaken in 2007, indicated that 48% of apprentices had worked for their employer before starting their apprenticeship, with 52% new to the employer.
Ms Buck:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (1) what proportion of apprenticeships started in each (a) local authority area and (b) region
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was taken up by people aged (i) 19 to 24 and (ii) over 24 years in each of the last four years; [83583]
(2) what proportion of apprenticeships started in each (a) local authority area and (b) region was taken up by people aged 16 to 19 years in each of the last four years. [83582]
Mr Hayes: I have made data available in the Libraries of the House showing the proportion of apprenticeship programme starts by local authority and region in each age band from 2006/07 to 2009/10, the latest year for which final data are available.
Information on the number of apprenticeship programme starts is published in a quarterly statistical first release (SFR). The latest SFR was published on 27 October 2011:
http://www.thedataservice.org.uk/statistics/statisticalfirstrelease/sfr_current
Public Houses
Mr Hepburn: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills how many non-tied publicans (a) in Jarrow constituency, (b) in South Tyneside, (c) in the north-east and (d) nationally have managed their pub for more than three years. [83906]
Mr Davey: The Government do not maintain figures on how long publicans have managed their pubs.
Mr Hepburn: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills how many breaches of codes of practice by pub companies with their tenants (a) in Jarrow constituency, (b) in South Tyneside, (c) in the north-east and (d) nationally have been reported in the last 12 months. [83907]
Mr Davey: The Government do not maintain figures on how many breaches of the codes of practice have occurred. Oversight of the codes of practice is the responsibility of the British Institute of Innkeeping benchmark and accreditation service.
The Government recently announced a range of significant reforms in the pub industry, including for the industry framework code to be strengthened and made legally binding, as well as the establishment of an independent conciliation and arbitration service to resolve disputes relating to the code. The Government's reforms may be found at:
http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm82/8222/8222.pdf
Business
Mr Meacher: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills what Overseas Market Introduction Service reports UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) has produced for Oxitec Ltd; on what date each report was provided; to which countries exports were considered; and on what dates any follow-up meetings organised by UKTI, the Science and Innovation Network or his Department took place. [82683]
Mr Prisk:
Oxitec has agreed that UK Trade & Investment can confirm it has delivered OMIS reports covering Brazil, Vietnam and India as detailed as follows. However,
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UK Trade & Investment's Overseas Market Introduction Service orders contain commercially sensitive information which cannot be released without the authority of each contributor or named company or individual in each market. Answering the question fully would require obtaining the authority of just under 70 companies or individuals across a number of overseas markets and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Roger Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills what estimate he has made of the number of partners, proprietors and employees that are engaged in (a) incorporated and (b) non-incorporated businesses. [83944]
Mr Davey: Companies House does not keep any record of proprietors and employees of incorporated businesses. However, it does record the number of partners of limited liability partnerships and limited partnerships and the figures for these are as follows:
| Type of business | Number of partnerships |
Companies House does not keep any records relating to non-incorporated businesses.
Business: Government Assistance
Grahame M. Morris: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills what assessment he has made of the Welsh Assembly Government's (a) ReAct, (b) ProAct, (c) ReAct II and (d) ProAct Skills Growth Wales schemes; and if he will make a statement. [83402]
Mr Hayes: Responsibility for business and the economy and for education and skills is devolved. As such, it is for the Welsh Assembly Government to make suitable assessments of these schemes.
A range of support is in place for workers and for business in England. For example, the Job Centre Plus Rapid Response Service, which helps people facing redundancy to move rapidly into alternative employment. The Government have also put in place measures to help improve the skills of those who are unemployed so they can gain employment and progress in work.
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Schemes like the Growth and Innovation Fund are broadly similar to the Welsh ProAct scheme, helping business to make the most of how skills can promote enterprise, productivity and growth.
Credit
Dr Whiteford: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills how many applications to be listed on the Consumer Credit Public Register have been rejected in each of the last five years; and for what reason in each case. [83042]
Mr Davey: The following table lists, for the last five complete calendar years, the counts of all new applications, renewals or variations which have been “rejected” either by being made of no effect, or formally refused. For the formal refusals, if no appeal was received, the date of the final decision is used to decide which year to count them under. If an appeal was made, then the appeal decision date is used. Any cases with ongoing appeals are not included.
The figures relate to refusals, refusals to renew, and refusals to vary only. Revocations, granting in different terms, and requirements have not been included.
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Applications made of no effect | Applications refused |
Daylight Saving Bill
Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (1) from which part of his Department's budget he has made the provision for the payment of money relating to the Daylight Saving Bill; and if he will make a statement; [83614]
(2) how much and what proportion of the payment of money relating to the Daylight Saving Bill is in connection with (a) the passage of the Bill through Parliament and (b) consultation with the devolved Assemblies; [83615]
(3) what estimate he has made of any potential costs to be incurred by local authorities in England in respect of implementation of the provisions of the Daylight Saving Bill; [83616]
(4) if he will consult with the English regions on the implications of the Daylight Saving Bill; and if he will make a statement; [83617]
(5) how he plans to allocate expenditure proposed for implementation of the provisions of the Daylight Saving Bill. [83618]
Mr Davey: Provision for expenditure on the Daylight Saving Bill has not yet been made. Should the Bill be enacted, we anticipate any costs largely falling in the next financial year and allocations have yet to be made.
We have estimated the cost to the Government of providing an independent Oversight Group and commissioning the cost-benefit analysis reviewing the likely effects of advancing time in the United Kingdom
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by one hour at £750,000. This sum takes no account of the cost of the Bill’s passage in Parliament, nor consultation with the devolved Assemblies. I would anticipate such expenditure being met from Departments’ general running costs.
No estimate has yet been made by the Department as to the potential costs to be incurred by local authorities in England or anywhere else in the United Kingdom in respect of implementation of the provisions of the Daylight Saving Bill.
Should the Daylight Saving Bill become law, a full cost-benefit analysis of the potential effects of advancing time by one hour in the UK will be prepared. Representations will be invited from a wide range of organisations and bodies, including the local authorities of England as well as those of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Daylight Saving Bill has yet to complete parliamentary consideration; details of how to allocate expenditure have yet to be considered.
Departmental Communication
Pete Wishart: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills how many (a) press officers, (b) internal communications officers, (c) external communications officers, (d) communications strategy officers and (e) other positions with a communications remit were employed by (i) his Department, (ii) its agencies and (iii) each non-departmental public body sponsored by his Department on the most recent date for which figures are available. [84181]
Mr Davey: As of November 2011 the BIS communications directorate has 95 staff within four teams: Media Relations, Stakeholder and Ministerial Engagement, Internal Communications and Corporate Communications. In addition, BIS has 12 embedded communications practitioners placed in directorates across the Department.
The most recent information in respect of communications staff employed by the partners, agencies and non-departmental public bodies sponsored by BIS is contained in the Operational Efficiency Programme Benchmarking Report for April 2009 to May 2010, which was commissioned by the Cabinet Office. The link to access this information is
http://data.gov.uk/dataset/oep-benchmarking-data-2009-10
Departmental Publications
Dan Jarvis: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills how many (a) leaflets, (b) posters and (c) reports his Department has published since May 2010; how much each cost; and which company (i) published and (ii) designed each. [82997]
Mr Davey: Since May 2010, the Department has published the following, which have incurred an external cost to be produced:
(a) Two campaigns which involved leaflets being produced at a cost of £170,208
(b) Three campaigns which involved posters being produced at a cost of £10,455
(c) 39 reports have been produced at a cost of £306,827
All items listed were produced by companies contracted through Government frameworks.
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Export Credit Guarantees: Argentina
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, pursuant to the answer to the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr of 9 November 2011, Official Report, column 375W, on export credits guarantees, what trade deals comprise Argentina's £45.24 million debt. [83147]
Mr Davey: The information requested is not held in a readily identifiable form and would involve disproportionate cost to obtain.
G4S
Keith Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills how many contracts his Department has awarded to G4S since May 2010; and what the (a) monetary value and (b) net worth was of each such contract. [83049]
Mr Davey: Central records indicate that the following total payments have been made to G4S Group companies since May 2010 for security services relating to the ex-Learning and Skills Council Estate;
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£ |
Further information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Members: Correspondence
Sir Gerald Kaufman: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills when he intends to answer the letter sent to him by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton on 6 October 2011 with regard to Mr P. Wightman. [83198]
Mr Davey: The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my right hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Vince Cable), responded to this letter on 17 October 2011.
Money Lenders
Dr Whiteford: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills how many prosecutions have been brought against unlicensed money lenders in each of the last five years. [83045]
Mr Davey: In each of the last five years, the following number of prosecutions that have been brought against unlicensed money lenders through the Illegal Money Lending Project:
| Financial year | Prosecutions |
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| Source: Illegal Money Lending Team | |
The Illegal Money Lending project was set up in 2004 as a pilot to investigate illegal money lenders (loan sharks). In 2007 the project was expanded to create three teams covering England, Scotland and Wales. As well as arresting and prosecuting loan sharks, the teams work with community partners to raise awareness of the practice and provide advice and support to victims. BIS funding for the project was £5.2 million in 2011/12.
National Debtline
Dr Whiteford: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills how many calls have been made to the National Debtline in each month since May 2007. [83046]
Mr Davey: The following table shows the number of calls made to the National Debtline each month since May 2007
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2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 |
| Source: Money Advice Trust | |||||
National Debtline is managed by the Money Advice Trust, which is an independent charity funded in the main by donations and Government funding. In 2011-12, BIS Department provided £1 million towards the cost of the helpline.
Odgers Berndtson
Mr Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills what payments Odgers Berndtson received from his Department for recruitment services from 1 May 2010 to 30 October 2011; and if he will make a statement. [82596]
Mr Davey [holding answer 24 November 2011]:During the period 1 May 2010 to 30 October 2011, Human Resources in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills paid £16,355 plus VAT to Odgers Berndtson for recruitment services.
Oxitec Ltd
Mr Meacher: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills on what dates meetings between Ministers or officials of his Department and its predecessors and Oxitec Ltd have taken place since 2000. [82686]
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Mr Davey: Information about Ministers' meetings is now published quarterly and can be accessed via the following link. Details of meetings which occurred prior to publication in October 2009 and meetings with officials, which are not recorded centrally, could be produced only at disproportionate cost.
http://www.bis.gov.uk/transparency/staff
Public Sector: Training
Mr Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, with reference to the report by the British Chambers of Commerce on skills for business, if he will assess the merits of giving access to training to all public sector workers who are at risk of redundancy. [83705]
Mr Davey: All individuals, including public sector workers, can access the further education (FE) and skills system to undertake training, including to retrain and re-skill. The Government's Skills Strategy, Skills for Sustainable Growth, sets out how we are reforming the FE and skills system to better support and improve the skills of the work force, the performance of the economy and engagement in learning. The Government's objective is to deliver a skills system driven from the bottom up, able to respond to the needs of all individuals, communities and an increasingly dynamic economy.
Supermarkets: Competition
Nadhim Zahawi: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills what his policy is on third party referrals to the groceries code adjudicator; and whether he plans to bring forward legislative proposals in respect of such referrals. [82351]
Mr Davey: The Government's position is that only evidence from direct and indirect suppliers, and publically available evidence, should be able to initiate investigations by the groceries code adjudicator. However, we have agreed to consider further the question of whether evidence from trade bodies or whistleblowers should also be taken into account.
Trade Unions: Training
Priti Patel: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills how much funding was provided by the Skills Funding Agency and its predecessor bodies to (a) trade unions and (b) TUC Education in each of the last five years. [82138]
Mr Hayes: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer the Minister of State for Universities and Science, my right hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr Willetts) gave to my hon. Friend for Witham on 11 July 2011, Official Report, column reference 195W.
UK Trade & Investment Overseas Market Introduction Service report
Mr Meacher: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills if he will place in the Library a copy of each UK Trade & Investment Overseas Market Introduction Service report for Oxitec Ltd. [82684]
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Mr Prisk: UK Trade & Investment provides support to UK business in 96 markets representing 98% of global GDP and delivers Overseas Market Introduction Service reports at the request of UK business. Each report contains detailed information gathered from a wide variety of foreign companies and individuals in the overseas markets. The information in each report is commercially sensitive and cannot be released without the authority of each contributor or named company or individual in each market. Answering the question would require obtaining the authority of just under 70 companies or individuals across a number of overseas markets and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Unemployment: Young People
David Mowat: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills how many people aged between 19 and 24 were not in education, employment or training in Warrington South constituency in each academic year since 1997. [82348]
Mr Hayes: Table 1 provides estimates of the number and proportion of people aged(1) 16 to 24 not in education, employment or training (NEET) in Warrington local authority in each year from 2000 to 2010. Due to incomplete data, comparable NEET estimates are not available prior to 2000.
| Table 1: People aged 16-24 not in education, employment or training (NEET) in Warrington local authority | |||
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NEET number | NEET percentage | Confidence interval |
| (1) Period covered is from March of the given year to the following February. | |||
Estimates from 2004 to 2010 are from the Annual Population Survey (APS), which covers the period January to December of each year. Estimates from 2000 to 2003 are from the Annual Local Area Labour Force Survey (ALALFS), the predecessor to the APS, which covers the period from March of the given year to the following February. The APS and ALALFS are the only available sources of data with a sample large enough to provide local authority estimates of the number of young people up to the age of 24 who are NEET. However, the sample is not large enough to provide estimates for smaller geographies, such as parliamentary constituencies, or to provide local authority estimates for age ranges narrower than 16 to 24.
Please note that these estimates are subject to large sampling variability and should therefore be treated with caution and viewed in conjunction with their Confidence Intervals(2) (CIs), which indicate how accurate an estimate is. For example, a CI of +/-5 percentage points (pp) means that the true value is between 5pp above the estimate and 5pp below the estimate.
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(1 )Age used is academic age, which is defined as the respondent’s age as at the preceding 31 August.
(2) Those given are 95% confidence intervals.
Vocational Guidance
Mr Anderson: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills what his policy is on ensuring a minimum professional qualification level for staff providing the telephone careers advice element of the National Careers Service. [81617]
Mr Hayes:
Although the National Careers Service will be launched from April 2012, the telephone helpline element of the service has been in place since September 2011. It comprises two contracts for helpline services:
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one providing careers advice to young people, and the other providing information and careers advice to adults. The contract for services to young people requires the contractor to employ staff who are competent to deliver the service; the contract for services to adults requires the contractor to ensure that all advisers hold qualifications appropriate to their role. These requirements will be aligned as contracting arrangements allow to ensure that all telephone helpline advisers will be required to meet the same professional qualification levels. More broadly, the matrix Standard, to which all providers of the National Careers Service must be accredited by April 2013, will ensure that advisers providing helpline and face-to-face careers guidance are suitably qualified and meet these professional standards.