Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the oral contribution of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the urgent question on the resignation of the chair of the OBR at column 991, 3 December 2025, whether special advisers have been required to provide access to the leak inquiry to communications on personal and government issued mobile devices and computers.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
On 9 February, the Government published its Review of Budget information security. This includes the outcomes and recommendations of the Cabinet Office’s leak inquiry. All individuals and organisations in government who had access to the relevant information were in scope, including special advisers.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the oral contribution of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury of 3 December 2025 on OBR: Resignation of Chair, Official Report, column 991, if she will provide an update on the progress of the leak inquiry.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
On 9 February, the Government published its Review of Budget information security. This includes the outcomes and recommendations of the Cabinet Office’s leak inquiry. The recommendations will be implemented in full.
Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the answer of 20 January 2026 to Question 104669 on Business Rates, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of the increases in Rateable Values for (a) hotels and (b) pubs from the 2026 revaluation on the liability of those businesses for business rates from the BID levies.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Business Improvement District (BID) levies are set locally through ballot approved proposals and are not automatically affected by revaluations or new multipliers. Therefore, any adjustment is a matter for the individual BID under its governing arrangements.
The Government recognises the important role that BIDs play in improving the local trading environment in high streets and town centres. Through the Pride in Place strategy, the Government has committed to strengthening BIDs by modernising existing arrangements, raising standards, and granting new powers for the establishment of property owner BIDs throughout England.
Asked by: Bradley Thomas (Conservative - Bromsgrove)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of changes to electric Vehicle Excise Duty on the use of internal combustion engine vehicles.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
As announced at Budget 2025, the Government is introducing Electric Vehicle Excise Duty (eVED) from April 2028, a new mileage charge for electric and plug-in hybrid cars, recognising that electric vehicles (EVs) contribute to congestion and wear and tear on the roads but pay no equivalent to fuel duty.
The Government is also committed to ensuring that driving an electric vehicle is an attractive choice for consumers; the eVED rate paid by electric car drivers will therefore be half the equivalent fuel duty rate paid by the average petrol/diesel driver, meaning that it will still be cheaper to own and run an EV for the majority of EV drivers, with a reduced rate for plug-in hybrid drivers.
The Government has set out the expected impacts of eVED and other Budget measures, including Exchequer and behavioural impacts, in the Budget 2025 Policy Costings document at GOV.UK.
There are uncertainties, but the number of internal combustion engine cars is still expected to fall over time as electric car sales increase; EV sales are forecast to more than triple from nearly 0.5 million sales in 2025/26 to around 1.6 million by 2030/31.
Asked by: Dave Doogan (Scottish National Party - Angus and Perthshire Glens)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of increases in employer National Insurance contributions on the recruitment of young workers in Scotland.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
A detailed assessment of the policy has been published by HMRC in their Tax Information and Impact Note. The TIIN sets out the impact of the policy on the exchequer, the economic impacts of the policy, and the impacts on individuals, businesses, and civil society organisations, as well as an overview of the equality impacts.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) also published the Economic and Fiscal Outlook (EFO), which sets out a detailed forecast of the economy and public finances. Accounting for policies that will materially affect the forecast, the OBR expect that employment levels will rise in every year of the forecast, and that they will be higher in every year compared to March, reaching 35.5m in 2030-31.
The UK Government is committed to providing young people with the best start to their working lives. That is why we have committed to a Youth Guarantee to support young people across Great Britain to earn or learn. This includes a Jobs Guarantee, which will provide a six-month paid work placement for every eligible 18- to 21-year-old who has been on Universal Credit and looking for work for 18 months.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether she plans to end the sale of written-off consumer debts to third-party debt purchasers.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government expects that consumers are treated fairly by firms purchasing and collecting debt, and recognises the importance of responsible debt recovery practices.
Firms that purchase or collect consumer credit debts must be authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and comply with its rules, including requirements to treat customers fairly and to offer appropriate forbearance options to customers in financial difficulty. The FCA has a broad range of supervisory and enforcement powers to address misconduct.
The Government remains committed to supporting individuals in financial difficulty and keeps the regulatory framework under review.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the proposed loan charge settlement scheme cut off date of 1 June 2021 for excluding taxpayers who have entered into contract settlements with HMRC before that date; and what steps she has taken to help ensure that taxpayers who settled earlier are not disadvantaged compared with those who settle under the new scheme.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government commissioned an independent review of the loan charge to bring the matter to a close for those affected, ensure fairness for all taxpayers and ensure that appropriate support is in place for those subject to the loan charge.
The purpose of the review was to bring the matter to a close for people who have not settled and paid their loan charge liabilities. Although the loan charge officially came into force from 6 April 2019, the deadline for settling to avoid being liable to the loan charge was extended because of the Morse Review. The settlement opportunity applies after 1 June 2021 because it is from that date onwards that loan charge settlements were agreed.
The review identified affordability as a key barrier preventing those individuals from settling and made recommendations to remove this barrier. The Government accepted all but one of the review’s recommendations and will legislate to give HMRC the power to administer a new settlement scheme.
The Government has no plans to apply the recommendations of the review beyond those individuals and employers with outstanding liabilities that were the focus of the review.
Asked by: Roz Savage (Liberal Democrat - South Cotswolds)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of introducing additional business rates relief for community pubs that operate as the sole hospitality venue in rural villages.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government already provides a series of business rate reliefs that eligible pubs in rural villages may benefit from. In addition to the support announced at Budget, the Government recently announced a 1-year 15% relief for all pubs from April 2026. This will mean around three quarters of pubs will see their bills either falling or remaining the same next year. For the following two years, their bills will then be frozen in real terms.
Pubs in rural areas may also benefit from either Rural Rate Relief or Small Business Rate Relief. Rural Rate Relief aims to ensure that key amenities are available and community assets are protected in rural areas. It provides 100% rate relief for properties that are based in eligible rural areas with populations below 3,000. Properties that are eligible for Small Business Rate Relief, which is available to businesses with a single property below a Rateable Value of £12,000, will receive 100 per cent relief.
Asked by: John Grady (Labour - Glasgow East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what information her Department holds on the amount of Theatre Tax Relief for Corporation Tax provided to Scottish Companies over the last two tax years.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Data on the amount of Theatre Tax Relief (TTR) paid to Scottish companies is held by HMRC on the basis of the company’s registered office address. The amount of TTR paid in relation to the last two complete tax years is as follows.
2021-22 | £2m |
2022-23 | £12m |
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to help ensure regulatory co-operation with China does not impact on UK standards in financial supervision.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The agreements reached at the first UK‑China Financial Working Group in Beijing will strengthen cooperation with China in ways that support the UK’s position as an open, competitive and well‑regulated international financial centre, supporting jobs and growth in the UK.
As set out in HM Treasury’s press release and the joint readout of the first UK-China Financial Working Group meeting (FWG), the FWG provides a new formal mechanism for structured, substantive and technical dialogue between UK and Chinese financial authorities on issues including financial stability and resilience, capital markets, market development and sustainable finance.
Specific outcomes include the designation of Bank of China’s London Branch as the UK’s second renminbi (RMB) clearing bank, which will broaden the range of services available to UK businesses trading with China and strengthen London’s role as a leading international financial centre. Technical discussions were also held on long-term initiatives to support the UK’s capital markets, as well as green finance and asset management sectors. Alongside the FWG and the Prime Minister’s visit, the UK and China also agreed to pursue new cooperation on innovative financing, such as RMB-denominated sovereign biodiversity bond issuances, cementing the City's role as the global hub for green finance.