Theatre Tax Relief
Debate between Baroness Penn and Baroness Bull(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, there are two different tax credit systems, as I understand it: one for film and audio-visual and the other for theatres. Both have huge value to the sector and also to the sector’s contribution to our economy. We are committed to ensuring that they continue to be able to contribute in that way. We want to make the system as simple to operate as possible, and all suggestions for doing that are gratefully received.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, the creative future report from the Communications and Digital Committee of your Lordships’ House, on which I sat until recently, called on the Government to benchmark the UK’s creative industry tax-relief schemes against those of other countries that are now offering similar schemes but with more attractive rates. This includes a new theatre production tax credit from New York, which is a direct competitor. What assessment have the Government made of the threat that this kind of international competition presents to the UK’s continued pre-eminence in the creative industries?
Baroness Penn (Con)
The noble Baroness is right that we should think about our international competitiveness. Tax reliefs for the cultural sector are not actually that common, but she has identified one in New York. We have looked at our scheme against that and, overall, our scheme is more generous than the New York one. We are confident that it provides great support for our theatres, not just within the UK but as international competitors as well.
Financial Services
Debate between Baroness Penn and Baroness Bull(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
I would certainly be interested to hear what more could be done in that area. On ensuring that everyday banking is accessible to customers, LINK, for example, publishes on its cash locator information on ATMs with audio assistance and those that are wheelchair-accessible, so that consumers are aware of what locations are suitable for them. We are always interested to hear about what further work we can do to promote financial inclusion.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, the Minister mentioned the FCA consumer duty. As I understand it, that duty and the consumer vulnerability guidance deal primarily with existing customers and do not help with the issue of the poverty premium, which excludes vulnerable people and those with the least access to resources from financial products and services. Can she say how that new consumer duty will address the issue mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, because I do not believe they are the same thing?
Financial Inclusion in England
Debate between Baroness Penn and Baroness Bull(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
The noble Baroness asks a very good question, and I am afraid I will have to double-check and get back to her. The reason that it has traditionally been a DWP and a Treasury Minister is their joint role on that policy forum. It is not me in the Treasury, but I will find out who it is. The Government and others have found it a useful forum to drive forward action in this area and I am sure they will want it to continue with its good work.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, will the Minister say what the Government are doing to tackle poverty premium issues in financial services? We know that people on the lowest incomes pay more for credit and insurance, for instance, but issues such as this seem to be kicked between the Treasury, which says it needs more data in order to take action, and the regulator, which says that it is not within its remit to collect that data. How does the Minister expect that the new FCA consumer duty and consumer vulnerability guidance will help tackle the poverty premium, given that they deal primarily with existing customers and do not address the needs of those consumers whom the market finds more expensive and therefore less profitable to serve?
Baroness Penn (Con)
The Government are conscious of the poverty premium. We have used the Financial Inclusion Policy Forum as somewhere that we can bring together different actors on this. I will give some examples of action that we have taken in this area. The FCA, the regulator, has taken action on motor and home insurance to stop customers who are renewing being charged more than new customers. We have also seen the age agreement put in place for older customers to be able to access travel and motor insurance, and some work has been done with the Association of British Insurers looking at the poverty premium, specifically in the rented sector, and it has provided some recommendations to the Government that we are considering how best to take forward.
Financial Inclusion
Debate between Baroness Penn and Baroness Bull
Baroness Penn (Con)
Financial education is taught in schools through a number of different avenues, including the maths curriculum, citizenship education and PSHE. The Government are well aware of the importance of this topic and continue to work with the Department for Education to make sure that schools and teachers have the resources to ensure that children can learn about it.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, following on from the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, about the poverty premium, which sees those who can least afford it being forced to pay more for essential goods and services, what are the Government doing to work with energy providers to prevent them charging more for electricity that is accessed via a pre-payment meter?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, pre-payment meter customers are covered by the price cap, so they receive protection from that, but they pay a higher rate, which Ofgem believes is necessary to reflect higher operational costs and risks. However, a robust set of rules is in place to protect pre-payment meter customers, ensuring that, if suppliers identify that they are in a vulnerable situation, including where they are self-connecting or self-rationing their supply, they must be offered additional support credit. In doing so, suppliers must also consider people’s ability to pay back that credit. So a robust set of support is available to people in that situation.
Young People: Post-pandemic Employment
Debate between Baroness Penn and Baroness Bull
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord made a number of points. The economic support provided by the Government to hard-hit sectors such as retail and hospitality has helped to protect jobs in those sectors, the workforces in which are disproportionately young, female and from ethnic minority backgrounds. The Kickstart scheme has been adapted and improved in a number of ways to improve take-up. For example, in February we removed the 30-vacancy threshold for a direct application to Kickstart. The figures I have show that there are more than 140,000 approved vacancies under the Kickstart scheme. We hope that take-up will improve as it goes on in delivery.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, has the Minister had a chance to read Kingston University’s recent Future Skills report, which surveyed 2,000 employers across all sectors? It found that the priority skills businesses will require to prosper beyond the pandemic are problem-solving skills: a mix of logical, social, creative, intuitive and analytical abilities. These are exactly the skills gained from arts and creative industries degrees, so can she explain why the Government seem so determined to drive students away from these courses, which were described by the Education Secretary himself as “dead-end”? Will the Government consider a creative and innovation skills strategy to promote creative subjects and deliver the skills that we know businesses want?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I am afraid that I have not read the report the noble Baroness referred to, but I absolutely agree on the value of the skills she mentioned. I reassure her that the Government support the development of skills in the arts, as well as in the sciences and technical skills, and will continue to do so.
Sudden Adult Death Syndrome
Debate between Baroness Penn and Baroness Bull
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, as I have said, the NHS engages with a number of charities involved in SAD. It also looks very carefully at the issue of screening, and the last time that it was reviewed by the UK National Screening Committee was in 2019.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, as the Minister noted, the statutory guidance for PHSE education now includes teaching secondary school students life-saving skills, including CPR. But can she say what support is provided to schools to ensure that it is taught accurately, especially when there is no school nurse or staff member qualified to do so? As it is guidance only, are the Government monitoring the number of schools that are actually teaching this content within PHSE?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I know that a range of resources is available to support schools in their teaching of PHSE, but I am happy to take away the detail of the noble Baroness’s question and write to her in response.
VAT Retail Export Scheme
Debate between Baroness Penn and Baroness Bull
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, of course purchasers can still benefit from the Shop & Ship method of VAT-free shopping. In addition, research from VisitBritain shows that cultural attractions remain the key motivation for visiting Britain, followed by the variety of places to visit. Tax-free shopping does not appear as one of the reasons in that research.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, the Minister will understand the obvious link between inbound visitors’ retail spend and the spillover effect on culture and visitor attractions. To take one example, a third of the 15 million West End theatre tickets sold annually are sold to overseas visitors. What assessment has been made of the impact of ending this scheme on culture, entertainment and visitor attractions, which are already suffering so badly as a result of the pandemic?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, as I have just noted, it is in fact culture that drives visitors to the UK rather than VAT-free shopping. The route of VAT-free shopping is still available through Shop & Ship. To support the wonderful cultural sector in the UK, we of course have the £1.57 billion cultural recovery fund.
Covid-19: Economy
Debate between Baroness Penn and Baroness Bull(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, the UK’s creative industries are a major economic asset: before Covid hit, they were generating more than £111 billion in GVA, growing at five times the rate of the UK economy, employing more than 2 million people and adding jobs at over three times the rate of the national average.
As other noble Lords have highlighted, this pandemic has demonstrated the sector’s value beyond the economic, with arts, culture and creativity sustaining and connecting us, giving us reasons to hope and supporting mental health and well-being. This is despite the sector being among those most affected by the pandemic. An ONS survey found that just 17% of arts and entertainment businesses were still operating, 42% of creative organisations say that income has dried up completely and 63% predict annual turnover will be cut by half by the end of the year. In line with the broader UK economy, 95% of creative enterprises are SMEs with fewer than nine employees. Studies have found that these microbusinesses are particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of this crisis.
The creative economy faces a specific challenge, in that a third of its workforce is self-employed, compared to 15% of the economy overall. Many operate as limited companies, taking taxable dividends alongside a small salary. This renders them ineligible for both the SEISS and the job retention scheme, despite losing 100% of their contracts overnight.
Creative, cultural and entertainment businesses face significant challenges to economic recovery, with the workforce decimated and income streams closed down. The sector will be among the last to come out of lockdown, given the impossibility of operating fully while social distancing is in place. Brexit and the loss of EU funding pots present additional challenges on the looming horizon. Can the Minister say when and how the UK shared prosperity fund will be allocated, given its role in replacing EU structural funds, which have been so vital to the infrastructure and local growth of the creative industries? Can he also say what the Government are doing to provide urgent support, tailored to the needs of the creative industries, so that they can be swiftly restored as a major driver of the UK’s cultural, social and economic success?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I remind noble Lords of the time-limited nature of this debate and the limit for Back-Bench contributions at two minutes to allow the Minister to give the fullest possible response.
Covid-19: Economy
Debate between Baroness Penn and Baroness Bull
Baroness Penn
One thing that is unchanged in this crisis is the Government’s commitment to levelling up across the country. The Government fully acknowledge the importance of local plans in building our economic recovery once we are through this pandemic.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, after the 2008 global financial crisis, UK productivity fell from an annual average rate of 2% to just 0.3%, with full recovery happening only after 30 quarters. Can the Minister assure the House that the lessons of 2008 are being taken into account in dealing with today’s crisis? In particular, what assessment has been made of the longer-term impact on productivity, and therefore on essential funds for public services, of failing to protect the goods and services sector alongside the understandable employment subsidies to protect jobs?
Baroness Penn
I assure the noble Baroness that we will reflect on all lessons from the past in dealing with the current crisis, although we have never seen anything quite of its nature before. One of our focuses, through the job retention scheme and the loans available to businesses, is to protect and maintain our productive capacity so that we can bridge this crisis, come out the other end, and protect our nation’s productivity and growth.