Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to provide favourable tax treatment for developers and builders of affordable housing, both for rent and for sale.
Answered by Lord Bates
The government already provides tax reliefs for developers and builders of affordable housing. This includes VAT relief for the construction of new residential property and conversion of commercial property in to new housing. In addition, there are already provisions in the tax system that, subject to certain conditions, relieve transactions in land and property by registered social landlords from Stamp Duty Land Tax and Capital Gains Tax. Whilst all taxes are kept under review, there are no plans to introduce additional tax reliefs at this time.
The government is committed to increasing the supply of affordable housing, and in October announced a further £2 billion of funding for the Affordable Homes Programme, including funding for social rented homes.
Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether Russian Television, based in Edinburgh, has paid in full all taxes and charges due and complied with any United Kingdom statutory requirements.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
HMRC has a statutory duty of confidentiality and therefore is unable to comment on individual cases.
UK tax law applies to all individuals and organisations that operate within the UK, and HMRC are responsible for ensuring the law is adhered to. Failure by any individual or organisation to comply with their statutory obligations is dealt with consistently.
Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government over what period, and under what headings, the €3 billion offered by the EU to Turkey in respect of refugees and migrants will be spent; and what verification of expenditure there will be.
Answered by Lord O'Neill of Gatley
At the EU-Turkey summit on 29 November, the EU committed €3 billion of additional support to Turkey to help ease its refugee burden and prevent further irregular migration to the EU. The European Commission has proposed a Refugee Facility for Turkey to coordinate the €3 billion in 2016 and 2017, which will be financed in part by Member State contributions and in part from the EU budget.
The details of the Refugee Facility, including the financing, governance and monitoring arrangements, are currently being discussed by Member States. All contributions from the EU budget will be fully consistent with the spending limits set out in the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2014-2020.
Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to provide tax incentives to firms and employers paying the living wage to all their workers.
Answered by Lord O'Neill of Gatley
The Government wants to move from a low wage, high tax, high welfare society to a higher wage, lower tax, lower welfare society. As the Chancellor announced at the Summer Budget, a new National Living Wage (NLW) will be introduced from April 2016. This will apply to all people over the age of 25, and will directly benefit 2¾ million people.
At the same time, the government is increasing the employer National Insurance Contributions (NICs) employment allowance from £2000 to £3000. This will reduce the costs of employment for businesses and charities and will mean that a business can employ four people full time on NLW and pay no employer NICs.
Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much tax credit was paid to working people of low income in each of the last three full years; what is their forecast for the current and next two years; and, for each year, what proportion of recipients were in full-time work.
Answered by Lord Deighton
The total amount of Tax Credit entitlement of recipients in each of the last three tax years can be found in Table 1.
£ millions | |||
Table 1: Total entitlement of Tax Credit recipients | |||
Year | Out-of-work | In-work | All |
2010-11 | 7,606 | 20,936 | 28,542 |
2011-12 | 8,138 | 21,066 | 29,203 |
2012-13 | 8,903 | 19,876 | 28,779 |
Figures in Table 1 are presented in £ millions, to the nearest 1 million, in line with HM Revenue and Customs publications. Breakdowns of recipients out-of-work and in-work have also been provided for context. Breakdowns of recipients in full-time employment, or otherwise, are unavailable.
2012-13 is the most recent year available for which finalised statistics have been produced.
Figures have been taken from Table 1.1 of the online publication ‘Child and Working Tax Credit Statistics: Finalised Annual Awards 2012-13’.
Figures providing total expenditure forecasts for Tax Credits in the current tax year, and the two following years can be found in Table 2.
£ billions | |
Table 2: Total expenditure forecasts of Tax Credits | |
Year | All |
2014-15 | 29.7 |
2015-16 | 29.5 |
2016-17 | 29.8 |
Figures in Table 2 are presented in £ billions, to the nearest 100 million, in line with Office for Budget Responsibility publications.
Breakdowns by employment status, full-time or otherwise are unavailable. These figures are taken from the ‘March 2015 Economic and Fiscal Outlook: Fiscal Supplementary Tables’ produced by the Office for Budget Responsibility and take into consideration Tax Credits as expenditure.
Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether duties on goods from Tunisia entering the European Union have been eliminated; and if not, to what extent they will be reduced in the coming year.
Answered by Lord Deighton
Following the signing of an Association Agreement with the EU in 1995, the import Tariffs on industrial products originating from Tunisia have been eliminated. The same Agreement also resulted in greater liberalisation in the Tariffs on agricultural and fishery products.
A preparatory process for launching negotiations on a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) is on-going.