Asked by: Lord Lucas (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to adding (1) a company number field to the Gov.uk VAT checker service, and (2) a VAT number field to the Companies House online register, with the aim of reducing corporate fraud and VAT evasion.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and Companies House (CH) are committed to preventing fraud and tax evasion by identifying and holding accountable corporate entities that attempt to evade their responsibilities and tax liabilities. The departments have strong relations, further strengthened by the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (2023) and have developed a collective programme of activities to facilitate closer cooperation on company registrations and de-registrations, accounting and filing, and sharing risk intelligence and data.
There are no plans to add a Company Number field to the UK VAT Registration checker service, or a VAT Registration Number field to the Companies House online register. However, HMRC and CH will continue to work together to develop and implement further improvements to the way that businesses register as a company and register for corporation tax and VAT to reduce tax evasion and corporate fraud.
Asked by: Lord Lucas (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to requiring each major food retailer to publish on their website a convenient way to report cases of food poisoning that are likely to have been caused by their products, and to take specified action upon such reports.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are currently no plans to implement this. Food poisoning cases and other food safety or hygiene issues should be reported directly via the Food Standards Agency website, or directly to local authority food safety teams who are responsible for all types of food businesses in the area.
Asked by: Lord Lucas (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether, when the Health, Education and Social Care Chamber makes a serious adverse ruling against a school but the judgment is not made public, it communicates the judgment to the relevant inspectorate; and, if not, why.
Answered by Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The provision of written reasons for decisions in Special Educational Needs and Discrimination (SEND) proceedings in the First-tier Tribunal is governed by the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber) Rules 2008. The rules can be found at the following link: The Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber) Rules 2008.
Rule 30 provides that written reasons must be provided to the parties where (i) the decision finally disposes of all issues in proceedings or (ii) the Tribunal makes a determination in a preliminary issue. The decision in individual cases on whether to disclose a written decision to someone other than a party to the proceedings is a judicial one and not something in which Ministers can intervene.
Asked by: Lord Lucas (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government, for each of the postcode areas BN20, BN21, BN22 and BN23, and for the BN postcode area as a whole, for pupils who did their GCSEs in each of the summers of 2022, 2023 and 2024, what number of pupils at state schools progressed to (1) academic sixth forms in independent schools, (2) academic sixth form in state schools, (3) state sixth form colleges and state further education colleges, (4) vocational qualifications at state colleges, (5) apprenticeships, (6) work and (7) unemployment; and, for each of those educational destinations, what was the average distance as the crow flies between home and 16-18 education.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Minister for Women and Equalities)
The information requested is not readily available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
However, the department publishes annual data on the destinations sustained, rather than progressed to, by pupils in the academic year following the end of key stage 4 study. This information includes detail on the number of pupils who sustained education, apprenticeships and employment destinations, or did not sustain any, by institution. This can be accessed at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/key-stage-4-destination-measures#explore-data-and-files.
The latest available data is for the 2021/22 cohort of school leavers, completing GCSEs in summer 2022, and their sustained activity in the following year. Institution level data is available in the release, however, the geographic indicators in these statistics relate to school location rather than pupil location. All destinations are presented against the institution they completed key stage 4.
The underlying data does not include information on pupils’ home postcodes and distance to institutions. This information could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lord Lucas (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Livermore on 24 February (HL5145), since 2017 on how many occasions the online marketplace paid VAT due from a seller, voluntarily or after court action.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
In all cases, when a Joint & Several Liability notice has been issued, the online marketplace has removed the relevant seller from their platform. Since 2017, 9 assessments have been raised by HMRC against online marketplaces following the issue of a Joint & Several Liability notice where the online marketplace had failed to remove the seller within the relevant time limits.
Asked by: Lord Lucas (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question
To ask the Senior Deputy Speaker what the implications are for the security of parliamentary data and devices of the decision by Apple to reduce the security features they make available to UK users.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
Apple has removed Advanced Data Protection in the UK, meaning some iCloud data categories now have standard rather than end-to-end encryption. Parliament-issued devices have separate security protocols, and we continue to provide advice to Members on how to protect Parliamentary and personal data on iPhones. The Parliamentary Security and Digital Departments do not assess that this change will have an adverse impact on Security.
Asked by: Lord Lucas (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the College of Policing or the National Police Chiefs Council report to them about any analysis those organisations have undertaken on the effectiveness of recording non-crime hate incidents in (1) reducing, and (2) preventing, hate crime; and, if so, how often.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Secretary is clear a consistent and common-sense approach must be taken with NCHIs.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), supported by the College of Policing, is currently conducting a review on the use and effectiveness of NCHIs.
Asked by: Lord Lucas (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what analysis, if any, they have undertaken to measure the effectiveness of the police recording non-crime hate incidents in detecting hate crime.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Secretary is clear a consistent and common-sense approach must be taken with NCHIs.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), supported by the College of Policing, is currently conducting a review on the use and effectiveness of NCHIs.
Asked by: Lord Lucas (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what analysis, if any, they have undertaken to measure the effectiveness of the police recording non-crime hate incidents in reducing hate crime.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Secretary is clear a consistent and common-sense approach must be taken with NCHIs.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), supported by the College of Policing, is currently conducting a review on the use and effectiveness of NCHIs.
Asked by: Lord Lucas (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government how often since 2017 has the joint liability rule been used to pursue an online marketplace for VAT which a seller on that marketplace has evaded; and with what success.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Since the start of 2017, HM Revenue & Customs has issued over 17,000 notices to online marketplaces resulting in the successful removal of non-compliant sellers.