Asked by: Lord Moylan (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the rate at which His Majesty's Revenue and Customs are currently processing income tax returns compared to previous years, and what steps they are taking to improve the processing of income tax returns in advance of submissions in January.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
By the end of January 2024, over 11.5m tax returns had been submitted for the 2022/23 financial year. Around 97 percent of returns received were online and the majority were processed automatically.
HMRC carries out additional processing work on a small percentage of tax returns. This includes checks, addressing amends made by customers and manually working through returns which are made on paper. This year HMRC is on track to meet targets for processing paper Self Assessment returns which is consistent with previous years.
To ensure taxpayers get support to meet their obligations for filing 23/24 returns, HMRC has recently recruited and trained additional customer service advisors.
Asked by: Lord Moylan (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the economic impact on the south-east of England of planned strikes on London Underground services.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
Transport in London is devolved to the Mayor and TfL. Thanks to constructive dialogue between TfL and the unions the strikes planned by both RMT and ASLEF for early November have now been called off.
Asked by: Lord Moylan (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government why foreign nationals with a passport vignette confirming indefinite leave to remain and seeking to evidence their immigration status by way of an eVisa are being directed by gov.uk to apply first for a Biometric Residence Permit (BRP), when all BRPs are due to lose validity by 31 December and the time taken to issue one is stated to be up to six months.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
People who have a vignette or stamp in their passport that shows they have indefinite leave to remain in the UK can also access an eVisa. They do this by making a No Time Limit application which helps us to re-establish their identity so that they can create a UKVI account to access digital evidence of their status. All No Time Limit applicants whose applications are decided before the end of this month will get a BRP which they can use to create a UKVI account and access their eVisa. If their applications are decided after the end of this month, they will not receive a BRP. Instead, applicants will either have an account created for them automatically, or will be advised on steps they need to take to create their UKVI account. Further information on the new process will be available at www.gov.uk/evisa.
Whilst we encourage people who have a vignette or stamp in their passport to transition to an eVisa, they will still be able to prove their rights as they do today, using their physical documents where these are permitted. That will not change at the end of 2024.
However, making the switch to an eVisa and creating a UKVI account will bring a range of benefits. This includes the fact that an eVisa cannot be lost or damaged, like a vignette, and there is no need for a potentially costly replacement.
Asked by: Lord Moylan (Conservative - Life peer)
Question
To ask His Majesty's Government what is their assessment of mandating equality, diversity and inclusion reporting on bodies which are not subject to the Equality Act 2010 public sector equality duty.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Education)
The Government is committed to extending mandatory pay gap reporting to ethnicity and disability pay gaps for employers with at least 250 employees. It is also committed to ensuring the Public Sector Equality Duty covers all parties exercising public functions.
Asked by: Lord Moylan (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the medical assessors for the Vaccine Damages Payment Scheme have access to the scientific advice given to ministers regarding the AstraZeneca Covid-19 Vaccine.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
All claims to the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) are assessed on a case-by-case basis by experienced independent medical assessors, General Medical Council registered doctors with a licence to practise, who have undertaken specialised training in vaccine damage and disability assessment.
When making medical assessment through the VDPS, independent medical assessors consider not just the claimant’s full medical records once they are gathered, but also the claim form and a range of credible resources to support their assessment, as per NHS Business Services Authority’s published VDPS Principles of Medical Assessment. This includes, but is not limited to, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s data, including Yellow Card information on suspected safety concerns involving a healthcare product, vaccine product information and updates, the UK Health Security Agency's Green Book, and the World Health Organization’s Causality assessment of an adverse event following immunization. Medical assessors will also consider academic research, epidemiological evidence, and the current consensus of expert medical opinion.
Asked by: Lord Moylan (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome have been recorded in each of the last ten years.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information is not held in the format requested. However, the following table shows a count of the Finished Admission Episodes (FAEs) where the primary diagnosis was Guillain-Barré syndrome, for the period 2014/15 to 2023/24 in England:
Year | FAEs |
2014/15 | 1,403 |
2015/16 | 1,354 |
2016/17 | 1,412 |
2017/18 | 1,342 |
2018/19 | 1,337 |
2019/20 | 1,354 |
2020/21 | 921 |
2021/22 | 1,243 |
2022/23 | 1,374 |
2023/24 | 1,367 |
Source: data is from the Hospital Episode Statistics, by NHS England.
Notes:
Asked by: Lord Moylan (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will publish the scientific advice they received from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation between 1 April and 6 May 2021 regarding age restrictions for the AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) provided advice to the Government between 1 April and 6 May 2021 regarding age restrictions for the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. This advice was published on the GOV.UK website, and states that the JCVI currently advises that it is preferable for adults aged less than 30 years old, without underlying health conditions that put them at higher risk of severe COVID-19 disease, to be offered an alternative COVID-19 vaccine, if available.
Discussions on the AstraZeneca vaccine also took place and are noted within the minutes of the JCVI’s COVID-19 sub-committee meetings held on 13, 22, and 29 April 2021. The outcome of the discussions held within these meetings was reflected in the updated JCVI advice on the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, published on the 7 May 2021, which extended the preferential use of alternative vaccines to unvaccinated adults aged 30 to 39 years old, who are not in a clinical priority group at higher risk of severe COVID-19 disease.
Asked by: Lord Moylan (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many applicants to the Vaccine Damages Payment Scheme (VDPS) have made a claim relating to the AstraZeneca Covid-19 Vaccine; and how many applicants to the VDPS have been waiting for a decision for longer than (1) one year and (2) 18 months.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As of 30 September 2024, the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) has processed 3,825 claims relating to the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. A further 207 claims relating to the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine are undergoing medical assessment. As of 30 September 2024, there were 7,335 live VDPS claims, of which 1,024 have been awaiting resolution for longer than 12 months, and 316 claims for longer than 18 months.
Asked by: Lord Moylan (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to reducing or freezing tobacco excise duty to curtail the illicit and non-duty paid tobacco market, and to minimise the annual tax revenue loss from tobacco duty avoidance.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Tobacco duty aims to raise revenue and reduce harm to public health by discouraging smoking and raised £10bn in 2022/23. High duty rates, making tobacco less affordable, have helped reduce smoking prevalence with the percentage of adult smokers in the UK reducing from 26% in 2000 to 12% in 2023.
Strong enforcement is essential in tackling the illicit tobacco market and minimising the tax gap. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and Border Force published a new illicit tobacco strategy in January 2024, ‘Stubbing Out the Problem)’. This set out the Government’s continued commitment to reduce the trade in illicit tobacco with a focus on reducing demand, and the disruption of organised crime groups behind the illicit tobacco trade.
The strategy is supported by £100 million of new ‘smokefree’ funding over the next 5 years which will boost existing HMRC and Border Force enforcement capability.
Asked by: Lord Moylan (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to end losses in tax revenue from tobacco duty fraud.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) launched its first strategy to tackle illicit tobacco in 2000. This, and consequent strategies with Border Force, have reduced the overall tobacco duty tax gap from 21.7% in 2005/6 to 14.5% in 2022/23.
During this time, the duty gap for cigarettes has reduced by a third, and for hand-rolling tobacco by a half.
In January this year HMRC and Border Force published their latest illicit tobacco strategy, ‘Stubbing Out the Problem’. This Government is committed to reducing the trade in illicit tobacco with a focus on reducing demand, and tackling and disrupting the organised crime groups behind the illicit tobacco trade.
The tobacco strategy is supported by £100 million of new smokefree funding over the next 5 years to boost existing HMRC and Border Force enforcement capability.