Asked by: Lord Kilclooney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether HM Revenue and Customs officers operate in Northern Ireland to detect illegal movements of (1) fuel, (2) tobacco, and (3) alcohol liquor, between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Answered by Lord Bates
Yes - HMRC deploy a wide range of intervention measures to ensure that we effectively detect, deter and disrupt the most serious attacks on the tax system, wherever they take place. This includes HMRC Officers operating in Northern Ireland to detect and interdict illegal movements of fuel, tobacco and alcohol between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Extensive multi-agency cooperation both with our partners in Northern Ireland and across borders is a key element of the operational response to fuel, tobacco and alcohol fraud together with other illicit trade between the UK and Ireland.
Asked by: Lord Kilclooney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether release of the £1 billion allocated in connection with their confidence and supply agreement with the DUP is dependent upon the restoration of the executive at Stormont.
Answered by Lord Bates
We want to see the financial support for Northern Ireland decided upon and spent by a devolved government to benefit the whole community. It will be for the restored Northern Ireland Executive to determine how the additional funding is spent.
Asked by: Lord Kilclooney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the outstanding amount of the UK loan to the government of Ireland; how much interest on that loan has been paid to the UK by the government of Ireland; and when that loan will be paid off.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
I refer the noble Lord to the most recent statutory report on the UK’s bilateral Loan to Ireland, which the Treasury provided to Parliament as required by Section 2 of the Loans to Ireland Act 2010. The last report was laid in Parliament on 13 October 2016 and is available in the Printed Paper Office[1].
This report shows the outstanding principal is £3,226,960,000, with repayments due in tranches from 15 April 2019 until 26 March 2021. An interest payment was made by the Republic of Ireland on 15 December 2016, and therefore the interest payments received now total £357,822,962.56.
[1] The report is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/report-under-section-2-of-the-loans-to-ireland-act-2010-1-april-2016-to-30-september-2016
Asked by: Lord Kilclooney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the proposed freeze on duty for Scotch whisky and cider will also apply to Bushmills Whiskey and Armagh Cider in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Lord O'Neill of Gatley
Alcohol duty rates are applied in the same way across the UK. Budget 2016 froze the duty rates on spirits and on still and lower strength sparkling cider.
Asked by: Lord Kilclooney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their revised estimate for the reduction in block grant paid to the Northern Ireland Executive after the introduction of 17 per cent Corporation Tax in Great Britain and 12½ per cent Corporation Tax in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Lord O'Neill of Gatley
The government has legislated to introduce a Northern Ireland rate of corporation tax, so the Northern Ireland Executive must now press on with the reforms necessary to put its finances on the sustainable footing required to complete this process.
The Northern Ireland Executive block grant would then be reduced by the amount of tax revenues foregone by the government as a result of devolution (due to direct and behavioural effects). Alongside this, the Executive would retain all revenues from the NI rate of corporation tax.
The government’s latest estimate of the impact on the Executive’s budget assumes that the NI corporation tax rate is set at 12.5% from April 2018, and also takes into account UK corporation tax main rates of 19% for the financial years 2018-19 and 2019-20 and 18% in 2020-21. On this basis, there is an estimated cost to the Executive in 2020-21 of £275m.
These estimates will be updated in due course to take into account the government’s further reduction in corporation tax to 17%.
Asked by: Lord Kilclooney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether levels of VAT in the UK can be reduced without the approval of the EU.
Answered by Lord O'Neill of Gatley
Member States have full autonomy over VAT within an agreed EU framework. Member States can apply a standard rate of VAT no lower than 15 per cent and apply a reduced rate of VAT no lower than 5 per cent.
Asked by: Lord Kilclooney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what has been the amount of government loans to the Republic of Ireland during the past decade; of those loans, what capital has been re-paid; and how much interest has been received.
Answered by Lord O'Neill of Gatley
I refer the noble Lord to the most recent statutory report which the Treasury provided to Parliament as required by Section 2 of the Loans to Ireland Act 2010. It was published on 15 October 2015 and is available online along with all previous reports submitted.[1]
This report shows the outstanding principal is £3,226,960,000, with repayments due in tranches from 15 April 2019 until 26 March 2021. An interest payment was made by the Republic of Ireland on 15 December 2015 and therefore the interest payments received now total £273,825,613.71.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/bilateral-loan-to-ireland
Asked by: Lord Kilclooney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what was the total payment made by the UK to the EU in 2014, and what was the total payment by the EU to the UK agricultural industry in that year.
Answered by Lord O'Neill of Gatley
The UK’s net contribution to the EU Budget in 2014 was £5.71 billion. This is the UK’s total contribution to the EU, reduced by the cash rebate and the money the UK receives from EU funded programmes.
The total receipts to the UK agricultural industry from the EU were £3.16 billion in 2014. Under this, £2.60 billion was for European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) (CAP pillar 1) and £0.60 billion for European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) (CAP pillar 2).
These figures are available publicly in HM Treasury’s EU Finances 2015.
Asked by: Lord Kilclooney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are their latest estimates of the block grant amounts transferred to (1) Wales, (2) Scotland, and (3) Northern Ireland in each of the three most recent financial years.
Answered by Lord O'Neill of Gatley
The combined Resource and Capital Departmental Expenditure Limits for each of the Devolved Administrations for the years in question is as follows:
£ million | 2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 |
Scottish Government | 29,008 | 30,220 | 30,090 |
Welsh Government | 15,791 | 15,896 | 15,935 |
Northern Ireland Executive | 11,105 | 11,365 | 11,193 |
These data do not include the changes made for 2015-16 as part of the Main Estimates round or the estimated outturn for 2014-15.
Updated information will be published in Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses later this summer.
Asked by: Lord Kilclooney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they consider that the devolution of corporation tax to Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland would cause a reduction in the block grant under the Barnett Formula to any of those devolved administrations.
Answered by Lord Deighton
The Smith Commission reported on 27 November and the Government has announced it will now prepare draft legislative clauses to implement the Heads of Agreement by the end of January. The Smith Commission did not agree that corporation tax would be devolved to Scotland.
The Wales Bill, currently in Parliament, provides the legislative framework to support the implementation of the recommendations made in the first report of the Commission on Devolution in Wales (Silk Commission). The Wales Bill does not feature any devolution of corporation tax powers to Wales.
At Autumn Statement 2014, the Government announced that the devolution of a corporation tax rate-setting power to Northern Ireland could be implemented provided that the Northern Ireland Executive is able to manage the financial implications. The parties in the Northern Ireland Executive are continuing talks aimed at resolving a number of issues including agreeing budgets for 2015-16 and putting the Executive’s finances on a sustainable footing for the future.
Northern Ireland faces unique cross-border challenges from the very low corporation tax rate in the Republic, significant over-reliance on public sector employment and the challenging legacy of the Troubles. The devolution of corporation tax to Northern Ireland recognises those factors and is consistent with the UK’s asymmetrical approach to devolution.
Any devolution of tax powers, such as corporation tax rate-setting powers, would require a corresponding reduction in the block grant to reflect the tax revenues that the UK Government would forego.