Asked by: Chris Elmore (Labour - Ogmore)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of extending the easement for levying wine duty beyond February 2025.
Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government has supported the wine industry with duty freezes at 6 of the last 12 fiscal events, including the decision at Spring Budget 2024 to freeze alcohol duty until 1 February 2025.
As part of the new alcohol duty reforms, the Government has removed the sparkling wine premium, meaning sparkling wines now pay the same amount of duty as still wines of the same strength. As a result, an 11% sparkling wine now pays 61p less duty than under the previous duty system. While higher strength wines will be subject to more duty under the reforms than under the previous system, lower strength wines will be subject to less duty.
The Government has been clear that the wine easement is a temporary and transitional measure to support the wine industry to adapt to the new duty system by 1 February 2025. The Government is confident that the necessary changes are manageable within the time provided and that the wine industry has the information required to update their systems and calculate the correct duty.
Asked by: Chris Elmore (Labour - Ogmore)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he plans to take to support the wine industry after February 2025.
Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government has supported the wine industry with duty freezes at 6 of the last 12 fiscal events, including the decision at Spring Budget 2024 to freeze alcohol duty until 1 February 2025.
As part of the new alcohol duty reforms, the Government has removed the sparkling wine premium, meaning sparkling wines now pay the same amount of duty as still wines of the same strength. As a result, an 11% sparkling wine now pays 61p less duty than under the previous duty system. While higher strength wines will be subject to more duty under the reforms than under the previous system, lower strength wines will be subject to less duty.
The Government has been clear that the wine easement is a temporary and transitional measure to support the wine industry to adapt to the new duty system by 1 February 2025. The Government is confident that the necessary changes are manageable within the time provided and that the wine industry has the information required to update their systems and calculate the correct duty.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether any ministerial redundancy payments have been repaid to their Department since 2019.
Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much has been raised through the Economic Crime (Anti-Money Laundering) Levy since its implementation; and what estimate his Department made of the amount that would be raised prior to its implementation.
Answered by Bim Afolami - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Economic Crime Levy raised £92 million in its first year of collection (2022/23). As the Levy is collected a year in arrears, the total Levy revenue for financial year 2023/24 has not yet been confirmed.
Prior to the Levy’s implementation, the Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) forecast that the Levy would raise £100m/year. This can be found on the OBR’s website under ‘supplementary fiscal tables: receipts and other’ - https://obr.uk/efo/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-march-2022/.
At Spring Budget 2024, the Chancellor increased the Levy fee for firms with revenue greater than £1 billion, to ensure we can continue to sustainably fund the government’s commitments to tackle economic crime.
Asked by: Matt Hancock (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many businesses the Financial Conduct Authority regulated (a) as of 20 May 2024 and (b) in 2016.
Answered by Bim Afolami - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 establishes the framework for financial services regulation. It provides for the Treasury and Parliament, through legislation, to determine which activities, products and markets are regulated and fall within the remit of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The FCA is responsible for regulating and supervising the financial services industry, including authorising businesses.
The question of how many businesses the FCA regulated is a matter for the FCA, which is operationally independent from Government. The FCA will respond to the Honourable Member by letter on this matter, and a copy of the letter will be placed in the Library of the House of Commons.
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Wentworth and Dearne)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the press release of 23 April 2024 entitled PM call with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine: 23 April 2024, whether the £500 million for Ukraine in 2024 will be drawn from the Treasury reserves.
Answered by Laura Trott - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Prime Minister has committed to providing £3bn in military support to Ukraine in 2024-25. This is part of our commitment to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence in 2030, which is fully funded with no increase in borrowing or debt.
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Wentworth and Dearne)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the Spring Budget 2024, whether the £2.5bn in military support for Ukraine in 2024 will be drawn from the Treasury reserves.
Answered by Laura Trott - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Prime Minister has committed to providing £3bn in military support to Ukraine in 2024-25. This is part of our commitment to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence in 2030, which is fully funded with no increase in borrowing or debt.
Asked by: Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the break-down of the planned cuts to be made to each government department's research and development budget to help fund the commitment to spend 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product on defence by 2030.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
We have committed to increase government R&D spending by £2 billion, from £20 billion in 2024-25 to £22 billion in the next Parliament.
Asked by: Baroness Verma (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to improve the speed and efficiency of the Financial Conduct Authority's authorisation process for financial services firms.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is operationally independent from Government, and is responsible for the authorisation processes for financial services firms. It is fully accountable to Parliament and the Treasury for how it discharges its statutory functions.
Both the government and the FCA are committed to ensuring the FCA has world-leading levels of operational effectiveness. The Government wrote to the FCA in December 2022 to highlight the importance of operational effectiveness for UK competitiveness. The FCA started publishing operating service metrics relating to authorisation processing on a quarterly basis in May 2023; these can be accessed on the FCA’s website.
Following the Government’s Call for Proposals last year, the FCA will start publishing additional operating metrics this summer, to support further scrutiny. These metrics will initially be published as part of the FCA’s Annual Report, and the report it is required to make on its implementation of its new secondary objective to facilitate the growth and competitiveness of the UK economy.
Asked by: Gen Kitchen (Labour - Wellingborough)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of bank closures on access to (a) cash and (b) in-person services in Wellingborough constituency.
Answered by Bim Afolami - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
Decisions to open or close a branch are commercial and the Government does not make assessments of these closure decisions. Nonetheless, it is imperative that banks and building societies recognise the needs of all their customers, including those who need to use cash or in-person services. The Government is monitoring the wider situation closely.
The Government legislated through the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 to introduce a new legislative framework to protect access to cash. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) must seek to ensure that there is reasonable provision of free withdrawal and deposit facilities in relation to personal current accounts. Upon the closure of a core cash service such as a bank branch, LINK assesses the community’s access to cash needs. If additional cash services are needed, industry will provide a shared solution such as a Banking Hub.
Guidance from the FCA sets out its expectation of firms when they are deciding to reduce their physical branches or the number of free-to-use ATMs. The FCA’s guidance is clear that firms are expected to carefully consider the impact of planned branch closures on their customers’ everyday banking and cash access needs, and put in place alternatives, where this is reasonable. Alternative options to access everyday banking services can be via telephone banking, through digital means such as mobile or online banking and via the Post Office or Banking Hubs.
UK Finance have recently confirmed 225 Banking Hubs will be announced by the end of 2024, up from the 130 locations currently confirmed. Furthermore, following my recent discussions with the UK high street banks, participating firms have also committed to improving Hubs by standardising the services available between firms, ensuring that customers will not require their own digital device to bank, trialling a ‘customer liaison service’ and trialling Saturday openings.