Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they undertook on air connectivity within the UK and on the wider impact on the Union, before deciding to raise aspects of Air Passenger Duty in the Budget statement announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 6 March.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
At Spring Budget 2024, the Government announced a one-off adjustment to non-economy rates of Air Passenger Duty (APD) for 2025-26 to help maintain their real terms value. As a result of these changes, the APD rates for domestic flights will not rise for commercial passengers.
In line with the Government’s commitment to support UK-wide connectivity, it halved the rate of APD on domestic flights in April 2023 following the 2021 consultation on aviation tax reform. As part of the consultation, the Government engaged with the Devolved Administrations, including the Northern Ireland Executive and other organisations from Northern Ireland.
As with all taxes, the Government keeps APD rates under review.
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what discussions they had with devolved administrations concerning the level and continuance of Air Passenger Duty prior to the Budget statement announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 6 March.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
At Spring Budget 2024, the Government announced a one-off adjustment to non-economy rates of Air Passenger Duty (APD) for 2025-26 to help maintain their real terms value. As a result of these changes, the APD rates for domestic flights will not rise for commercial passengers.
In line with the Government’s commitment to support UK-wide connectivity, it halved the rate of APD on domestic flights in April 2023 following the 2021 consultation on aviation tax reform. As part of the consultation, the Government engaged with the Devolved Administrations, including the Northern Ireland Executive and other organisations from Northern Ireland.
As with all taxes, the Government keeps APD rates under review.
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government why thresholds for child benefit entitlement do not take into account overall household income, so that families with one earner are sometimes disadvantaged under the current system.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government at the Spring Budget set out plans to administer the High Income Child Benefit Charge on a household rather than individual basis by April 2026, and will be consulting on these changes in due course
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to rebalance the burden of taxes to provide a fairer distribution between high street businesses and online companies.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The 2023 business rates revaluation updated ratable values to ensure bills more closely reflect the commercial property market and ensured the burden of rates falls across all non-domestic properties.
Furthermore, at Autumn Statement 2023, the government announced a package of business rates support worth £4.3 billion over the next five years to support small businesses and the high street.
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to increase Government contributions to Tax-free Childcare Allowance.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Tax-Free Childcare provides financial support for working parents with their childcare costs. For every £8 parents pay into their childcare account, the Government adds £2 up to a maximum of £2,000 in top up per year for each child up to age 11 and up to £4,000 per disabled child until they’re 17.
The Government recognizes the importance of supporting parents with the costs of childcare and continues to support families with a range of other childcare offers, including the free hours offer, and support through Universal Credit childcare.
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many businesses are expected to benefit from raising of the threshold for VAT exemption from £85,000 to £90,000 per annum.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
It is expected that 28,000 fewer businesses will need to be VAT registered in 2024 to 2025, and 14,000 fewer on average from 2024 to 2025 to 2028 to 2029.
This information can be found in HM Revenue & Customs’ publication: ‘VAT: increasing the registration and deregistration thresholds’, published 7 March 2024.
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the total amount of (1) resource expenditure, and (2) capital expenditure, repurposed from previously allocated funding to form part of the package of overall funding offered to restore devolution in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The UK Government is providing the Northern Ireland Executive with a comprehensive £3.3 billion spending settlement to stabilise public services, better manage public finances and pave the way for transformation of public services.
Within this package, as set out by the UK Government last month, we are providing the Northern Ireland Executive with £708 million to support public services over five years from 2024-25 to 2028-29. This is comprised of £85 million new funding and removing the ring-fence on £623 million of existing Northern Ireland funding streams.
As the £623 million being un-ringfenced is from unallocated Northern Ireland funding streams, none of the Northern Ireland Executive’s block grant has been repurposed as part of the UK Government’s financial package.
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what areas of previously allocated expenditure within the Northern Ireland Block Grant were repurposed to form part of the package for restored devolution in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The UK Government is providing the Northern Ireland Executive with a comprehensive £3.3 billion spending settlement to stabilise public services, better manage public finances and pave the way for transformation of public services.
Within this package, as set out by the UK Government last month, we are providing the Northern Ireland Executive with £708 million to support public services over five years from 2024-25 to 2028-29. This is comprised of £85 million new funding and removing the ring-fence on £623 million of existing Northern Ireland funding streams.
As the £623 million being un-ringfenced is from unallocated Northern Ireland funding streams, none of the Northern Ireland Executive’s block grant has been repurposed as part of the UK Government’s financial package.
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the average costs to parents of providing school uniform for pupils attending (1) primary, and (2) secondary, state schools.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department’s last report on the cost of school uniform, 'Cost of School Uniform 2015', was published in June 2015. This report found the average cost of school uniform was £212.88. At primary level the average cost was £192.14 for boys and £201.04 for girls, and at secondary level the average cost was £231.01 for boys and was £239.93 for girls. The report is attached.
In 2021, the department published statutory guidance on the cost of school uniform to ensure uniform is affordable for all families. This states that “school governing boards should give high priority to considerations of cost for parents, and they should be able to demonstrate how best value for money has been achieved when developing or making any change to their uniform policy”. It also sets out that branded items should be kept to a minimum. The guidance came into force in 2022 and is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cost-of-school-uniforms/cost-of-school-uniforms.
In December 2023, the department ran a repeat of the 2015 survey, asking parents about the cost of school uniform in 2023. The department is currently analysing the resulting data and expects to publish our findings later this spring.
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following the request made by the Northern Ireland Executive, what assessment they have made of widening the scope of the legislation to reverse the convictions of sub-postmasters so that applies to Northern Ireland.
Answered by Lord Offord of Garvel - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Justice is a devolved matter in Scotland and Northern Ireland. After engagement with interested parties and careful consideration, the Government believe that the approach for overturning the convictions in Scotland and Northern Ireland should be determined by the Scottish Government and Northern Ireland Executive.
The Government will continue to work with the Devolved Administrations to enable them to progress their own approaches to overturning convictions in their jurisdictions to ensure equitable outcomes for victims across the UK.
Compensation will be paid on a common basis across the UK as postal services are a reserved matter.