Blog

  • Owen Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Owen Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Owen Smith on 2016-04-08.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate the Government has made of the number of people who will (a) be eligible for and (b) participate in the Help to Save scheme in each year up to 2020.

    Harriett Baldwin

    Approximately 3.5 million people are expected to be eligible to open a Help to Save account in each year from the date the scheme is launched, which will be no later than April 2018.

    The costing is based on the expectation that around half a million people will open a Help to Save account in the first two years that accounts are available.

    Further information on the costing of this measure can be found on page 62 of the published Budget 2016 Policy Costings document, available here:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/508147/PU1912_Policy_Costings_FINAL3.pdf

    “

  • Barry Sheerman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Barry Sheerman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2016-04-08.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many workers his Department estimates will be financially worse off as a result of the recent increase in the minimum wage.

    Damian Hinds

    The introduction of the National Living Wage on April 1st marked a pay rise for low paid workers across the UK. Our objective is for it to reach over £9 by 2020. This means an employee aged 25 or over working full-time on the National Minimum Wage will earn over £4,200 a year more by 2020 in cash terms, or £3,800 after taking into account inflation. 2.9m low wage workers are expected to benefit directly, and up to 6m could see a pay rise as a result of a ripple effect up the earnings distribution.

    The independent Office for Budget Responsibility estimated that the NLW would have, in their words, only a “fractional” effect on unemployment. And taking into account the NLW, the OBR forecast that employment would rise by 1.1 million by 2020.

  • Barry Sheerman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Barry Sheerman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2016-04-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that workers are not financially worse off as a result of the recent increase in the minimum wage.

    Nick Boles

    On current Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts a full-time National Minimum Wage (NMW) worker will earn over £4,200 more by 2020 from the National Living Wage (NLW) in cash terms. 2.9m low wage workers are expected to benefit directly, and up to 6m in total could see their pay rise as a result of a ripple effect up the earnings distribution.

    What is allowed to be deducted from a salary is tightly controlled. The Government enforces this robustly, and is bolstering its resources to bear down on non-compliance through further increasing HMRC’s NMW/NLW enforcement budget for 2016/17.

    Employers can choose to set and change the overall, wider remuneration level as long as they are paying at or above the NMW / NLW minima, but they will also need to consider whether that package, overall, remains competitive to retain and develop the people and talent they need for their businesses.

    The Government has also taken measures to support businesses. First, from April 2016, the Government has increased the employment allowance from £2,000 to £3,000 from April 2016. We are also cutting corporation tax from 20% to 17% by the end of the Parliament, which will benefit over a million firms of all sizes and give the UK the lowest rate of corporation tax in the G20. The cuts since 2010 will be worth almost £15bn a year to businesses by the end of Parliament. Furthermore, the Government is cutting the burden of business rates by £6.7 billion over the next 5 years.

  • Phil Boswell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Phil Boswell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Phil Boswell on 2016-04-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of the security of pensions invested in the British Steel pension fund.

    Justin Tomlinson

    The government continues to work closely with Tata on the future for the members of the British Steel pension fund. Members of defined benefit occupational pension schemes in the UK are covered by a robust framework of protection.

  • Julie Cooper – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Julie Cooper – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julie Cooper on 2016-04-08.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many projects in Lancashire have been funded directly under the Northern Powerhouse initiative.

    Greg Hands

    The Northern Powerhouse is creating a single Northern economy that is greater than the sum of its parts. Lancashire will benefit from pan-Northern projects including the Northern Powerhouse Schools Strategy, Shale Wealth Fund, Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund and membership of Transport for the North. Lancashire will directly benefit from investments including a £251.11m growth deal, two Enterprise Zones, a National College for Onshore Oil and Gas at Blackpool, £56,000 for the refurbishment of the Muni theatre in Pendle and numerous transport schemes. Government does not hold information on the specific number of projects in Lancashire.

  • Sir Nicholas Soames – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Sir Nicholas Soames – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sir Nicholas Soames on 2016-04-08.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to promote research and development in the UK.

    Greg Hands

    At the Spending Review 2015 we protected the current £4.7 billion science resource funding in real terms for the rest of the Parliament and re-affirmed our long term science capital commitment of £6.9 billion between 2015-2021.

    The government also continues to support business research and development investment through R&D tax credits. In 2013-14, R&D tax credits provided £1.75bn of relief to over 18,000 companies, supporting around £14.3bn of innovative investment.

  • Andy Slaughter – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Andy Slaughter – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-04-08.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what (a) written and (b) other contacts he or Ministers of his Department had with senior executives at (a) AXA UK, (b) Ageas UK, (c) General Insurance, (d) Direct Line Insurance and (e) Admiral Insurance between 1 September and 26 November 2015.

    Harriett Baldwin

    Treasury Ministers and officials have meetings and representations with a wide variety of organisations in the public and private sectors as part of the process of policy development and delivery.

    Details of ministerial and permanent secretary meetings with external organisations on departmental business are published on a quarterly basis and are available at:

    www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmt-ministers-meetings-hospitality-gifts-and-overseas-travel

  • Ian Murray – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    Ian Murray – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian Murray on 2016-04-08.

    To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the share of income of the top one per cent of earners in Scotland was in each year since 1990.

    Mr Rob Wilson

    The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

  • Paul Flynn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Paul Flynn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2016-04-08.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to paragraph A.23 of the Economic and fiscal outlook of the Office for Budget Responsibility, Cm 9212, published in March 2016, what steps he has taken to increase HM Revenue and Custom’s yields from tax repatriation from British overseas territories.

    Mr David Gauke

    The Government is absolutely committed to exposing and acting on financial wrongdoing and we relentlessly pursue tax evaders.

    HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has brought in more than £2 billion from offshore tax evaders since 2010 and the government has repeatedly strengthened our powers so we can take even tougher action against those who try to cheat the honest majority by hiding their money in offshore tax havens.

    The Government has led a transformation in global tax transparency which, from this year, will see HMRC start to automatically receive offshore account and trust data from more than 90 countries, including British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. This will further increase HMRC’s ability to crack down on those still hiding their money offshore.

    The Government is further pushing for full and effective transparency for UK law enforcement to have access to beneficial ownership information of companies from all its Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories.

    The Government has also introduced tough new powers and game-changing measures to tackle offshore and onshore tax evasion, and as recently as the summer Budget 2015 gave HMRC an additional £800 million to invest in compliance and tax evasion work.

    This is expected to recover £7.2 billion in tax over the next five years and includes tripling the number of criminal investigations that HMRC can undertake into serious and complex tax crime, focusing particularly on wealthy individuals and corporates, with the aim of achieving 100 prosecutions a year by the end of the Parliament.

    The new powers and measures include:

    • Higher financial penalties for those hiding money and other assets offshore, such as, for the first time, linking the penalty to the value of the asset kept offshore. These are in addition to existing measures which already allow for fines of up to 300% of any tax found to have been evaded offshore.

    • New civil penalties for those who deliberately enable offshore evasion so they will face the same penalty as the tax evader.

    • Public naming of both evaders and those who enable evasion.

    • A new criminal offence for corporations that fail to prevent their representatives from facilitating tax evasion. The new offence, which will be legislated for this year, will ensure that corporations exercise due diligence over the services they provide, and ensure that those who don’t can be held to account.

    • A new strict liability criminal offence for offshore evasion, which we are currently legislating for – so in the worst cases it’s no longer possible to plead ignorance in an attempt to avoid criminal prosecution.

  • Greg Mulholland – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    Greg Mulholland – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-04-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to paragraph 2.256 of Budget 2016, when he plans to announce further details of the Government’s support for a bid to host the 2021 Rugby League World Cup.

    David Evennett

    My officials are holding regular discussions with the Rugby Football League (RFL) and UK Sport about establishing the support the RFL requires for a successful bid. The government will make a further announcement ahead of the bid deadline in June.