Asked by: Lord Rogan (Ulster Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to provide mitigation to community pharmacies in Northern Ireland before the increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions comes into effect in April.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
At Autumn Budget 2024, the Government provided funding to the public sector to support them with the additional cost associated with changes to Employer National Insurance Contributions.
The Northern Ireland Executive will receive funding through the Barnett formula for any changes to UK Government budgets, including this additional support, in the usual way in 2025-26. This is the normal operation of the funding arrangements as set out in the Statement of Funding Policy.
This funding will be in addition to the Northern Ireland Executive’s record Spending Review settlements for 2025-26, which are the largest in real terms of any settlements since devolution.
Barnett-based funding for the Northern Ireland Executive is not ringfenced for a specific policy area. This allows the Northern Ireland Executive the flexibility to allocate its funding across devolved areas according to its own priorities and local circumstances, including community pharmacies in Northern Ireland.
Asked by: Lord Rogan (Ulster Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to visit Northern Ireland to discuss how it can play its full part in growing the UK economy.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer looks forward to visiting Northen Ireland when diary scheduling allows.
Asked by: Lord Rogan (Ulster Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government why representatives of the UK media were refused permission to accompany the Chancellor of the Exchequer on her visit to China; and whether representatives of the government of China were consulted before this decision was made.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The government is taking a consistent, long term and strategic approach to managing the UK’s relations with China, rooted in UK. This means cooperating where we can, competing where we need to, and challenging where we must.
The Chancellor’s visit to China for the 2025 UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue was consistent with this approach and was the UK’s first substantive engagement with China on nationally important economic and financial issues in five years. The Chancellor was accompanied by a small delegation as we looked to re-open dialogue and respectfully yet robustly strengthen our lines of communication.
The Chancellor took questions from journalists from UK and international media organisations while she was in Beijing and representatives of the government of China were aware of these plans before the fact.
The government published a press statement about the Chancellor’s visit on Saturday 11 January. [1.]
1 - UK Government, 11 January 2025. Chancellor marks £600m of secure growth for UK economy in Beijing. [Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chancellor-marks-600m-of-secure-growth-for-uk-economy-in-beijing]
Asked by: Lord Rogan (Ulster Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they conducted an impact analysis before capping Agricultural Property Relief on inheritance tax at £1 million for Northern Ireland farmers; and if so, whether they will publish the results.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government published information about the reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief at GOV.UK.
It is expected that up to around 2,000 estates will be affected by the changes to Agricultural Property Relief (APR) and Business Property Relief (BPR). Up to around 520 of these are expected to relate to claims for APR (including those that also claim for BPR), and this number falls to around 430 when claims that include AIM shares are excluded. Almost three-quarters of estates claiming agricultural property relief (or those claiming agricultural property relief and business property relief together) each year are expected to be unaffected by these reforms.
In accordance with standard practice, a tax information and impact note will be published alongside the draft legislation before the relevant Finance Bill.
Asked by: Lord Rogan (Ulster Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Penn on 12 July (HL9073), how enabling duty-free shopping between Northern Ireland and the EU would "undermine frictionless trade with the EU"; and why this is not the case in relation to trade between Great Britain and the EU.
Answered by Baroness Penn
Introducing duty free shopping between Northern Ireland and the EU (which includes the Republic of Ireland) would require implementing allowances for the movement of these goods, to stop the uncontrolled flow of tax-free goods into either Northern Ireland or the EU (including the Republic of Ireland). These allowances would require enforcement. Therefore, if this were to be implemented, controls on the movement of goods between NI and the Republic of Ireland would be required, contravening the shared ambitions of the UK, Ireland and the EU.
By contrast, the movement of goods between the EU and Great Britain is subject to full third-country controls. This enables the enforcement of allowances for duty-free goods for passengers travelling into and out of Great Britain.
Asked by: Lord Rogan (Ulster Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will provide additional funding under the Barnett consequentials to fund public sector pay awards in Northern Ireland, reflecting those offered to public sector workers in England and Wales.
Answered by Baroness Penn
The Government is accepting the headline pay recommendations of the independent Pay Review Bodies in full for 2023/24. This will be funded from within existing department budgets through a combination of greater efficiency and reprioritisation.
The Northern Ireland Executive are well funded to deliver all their devolved responsibilities, receiving at least 20% more funding per person than equivalent UK Government spending in other parts of the UK. As the Northern Ireland Fiscal Council acknowledges, Northern Ireland is receiving the funding it needs. Spending Review 2021 also set the largest annual block grants, in real terms, of any spending review settlement since the devolution Acts. This provided £15 billion per year for the Northern Ireland Executive.
A full breakdown of changes to devolved administrations’ block grants, including Barnett consequentials, is set out in the published Block Grant Transparency document.
Asked by: Lord Rogan (Ulster Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Penn on 12 April (HL7072), what discussions they plan to have with the European Commission to enable residents of Northern Ireland to buy duty free products when travelling from Northern Ireland to the EU.
Answered by Baroness Penn
The Government’s duty-free policy remains unchanged after the agreement of the Windsor Framework. Northern Ireland enjoys frictionless trade with both the rest of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – the Government is committed to ensuring that remains the case.
Enabling duty-free shopping between Ireland and Northern Ireland could lead to significant distortions of trade on the island of Ireland as well as a significant revenue loss for both UK and Ireland by creating a legal route for unlimited amounts of alcohol and tobacco to flow into the UK and EU markets duty-free.
The Government therefore has no plans to raise this matter with the European Commission.
Asked by: Lord Rogan (Ulster Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many times the Prime Minister visited Northern Ireland when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Answered by Baroness Penn
The Prime Minister did not carry out any official visits to Northern Ireland during his time as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Rt Hon Lucy Frazer KC MP, visited Northern Ireland on 1st June 2022.
Asked by: Lord Rogan (Ulster Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much they have spent in each financial year since 2016–17 to create a national digital platform to mitigate the effects of regulatory barriers to trade and to ensure the swift movement of goods between Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the EU following the UK’s exit from the EU; and when they expect this to be delivered.
Answered by Baroness Penn
It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.Asked by: Lord Rogan (Ulster Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Penn on 8 February (HL5672), whether HMRC intends to start recording the fraudulent use of red diesel in the UK as a specific offence when the law for the use rebated fuel changes on 1 April; and if not, why not.
Answered by Baroness Penn
HMRC records all occasions where rebated fuel is found being used in circumstances not permitted by legislation. As detections of misuse are confirmed by the formal identification of Government markers and dyes, some of which are common to all types of rebated fuel including those used in EU states, it is not possible to identify specific red diesel offences. Samples analysed by HMRC can contain a mixture of these markers and dyes, therefore, it is often not possible to identify misuse by rebated fuel type.