Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they will appoint a commissioner responsible for giving advice about Wales under the provisions of the Crown Estate Act 2025.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The recruitment campaign launched on 16 October with a view to making an appointment by early 2026. It closed to new applications on 12 November and continues to progress in accordance with the Governance Code for Public Appointments.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what discussions they have held with the Farmer's Union of Wales regarding the likely impact of changes to inheritance tax on farming in Wales.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Ministers from several Government departments have met with organisations including NFU Cymru and the Farmers’ Union of Wales.
The Government believes its reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief from 6 April 2026 get the balance right between supporting farms and businesses, fixing the public finances, and funding public services. The reforms reduce the inheritance tax advantages available to owners of agricultural and business assets, but still ensure those assets will be taxed at a much lower effective rate than most other assets. Despite a tough fiscal context, the Government will maintain very significant levels of relief from inheritance tax beyond what is available to others and compared to the position before 1992. Where inheritance tax is due, those liable for a charge can pay any liability on the relevant assets over 10 annual instalments, interest-free.
As announced at Budget 2025, any unused £1 million allowance for the 100% rate of agricultural property relief and business property relief will be transferable between spouses and civil partners, including if the first death was before 6 April 2026.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the estimated annual tax revenue arising from the gambling industry.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Total Betting & Gaming Duty receipts for 2024-25 were £3.6 billion [1].
HMRC does not collate separate data for gambling operators for other tax heads.
[1]See https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-betting-and-gaming-statistics for further detail
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what amount of interest was paid on the UK national debt for each financial year since, and including, 2015–16.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The requested information is in the table below and publicly available in the Office for National Statistics’ Public Sector Finances bulletin for September 2025. [1]
Time period | Current expenditure, of which Interest (£ million) |
Apr 2015 to Mar 2016 | 46,360 |
Apr 2016 to Mar 2017 | 49,922 |
Apr 2017 to Mar 2018 | 56,162 |
Apr 2018 to Mar 2019 | 50,134 |
Apr 2019 to Mar 2020 | 50,266 |
Apr 2020 to Mar 2021 | 41,012 |
Apr 2021 to Mar 2022 | 70,892 |
Apr 2022 to Mar 2023 | 108,063 |
Apr 2023 to Mar 2024 | 83,213 |
Apr 2024 to Mar 2025 | 85,402 |
The government is committed to its non-negotiable fiscal rules, to reduce debt and borrowing. This is the responsible choice – to live within our means, reduce our levels of borrowing in the years ahead and support the Bank of England to get inflation down, so we can deliver on the promises of working people, spend less on servicing debt and reduce the burden on future generations.
[1] Please see Appendix A, table PSA6B part 2, second column (Series NMFX). This series denotes Central Government debt interest payable. https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/datasets/publicsectorfinancesappendixatables110
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they taken to make a quantitative assessment of the impact of the Autumn Budget 2024 on the economies of Wales and Scotland.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government considered the impact of all measures announced at the Budget in October 2024 on the economies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. These considerations also form part of the process for the Budget that the Chancellor is due to deliver on 26 November.
The Government provides information to the Office for Budget Responsibility to enable it to deliver its forecast for those elements of taxation which are devolved.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what recent estimate they have made of the impact of Brexit on the economy.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) is the Government’s official forecaster.
In 2020, the OBR estimated that the additional trade barriers associated with leaving the EU will reduce trade intensity by 15 per cent and as a result GDP will be 4 per cent lower than it otherwise would have been. The OBR estimated that around two-fifths of the 4 per cent impact had already occurred by the time the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement came into force, that GDP would be 2.7 per cent lower by 2025, with the remaining reduction occurring by 2031.
In the OBR’s March 2024 Economic and Fiscal Outlook, they reaffirmed these assumptions were on track, and as of Spring 2025 these forecasts were unchanged.
Other independent studies are also consistent with this analysis, for example the National Institute of Economic and Social Research estimates that GDP will be 5 to 6 per cent lower as a result of Brexit.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the proposal contained in the report The Impact of Changes to Inheritance Tax on Farm Estates, published by the Centre for the Analysis of Taxation in August, to apply 100 percent relief on estates up to £2 million, with no additional relief above that threshhold.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government believes its reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief from 6 April 2026 get the balance right between supporting farms and businesses, and fixing the public finances and supporting public services. The reforms reduce the inheritance tax advantages available to owners of agricultural and business assets, but still mean those assets will be taxed at a much lower effective rate than most other assets. Despite a tough fiscal context, the Government will maintain very significant levels of relief from inheritance tax beyond what is available to others and compared to the position before 1992. Where inheritance tax is due, those liable for a charge can pay any liability on the relevant assets over 10 annual instalments, interest-free.
The report by the independent Centre for the Analysis of Taxation (CenTax) supports the Government’s analysis of these reforms, including the number of estates affected in 2026-27, and concludes that half of these estates will see an increase in their effective inheritance tax rate of less than 5 percentage points, and almost 90 per cent of these estates could pay their entire inheritance tax bill out of non-farm assets. In CenTax’s opinion, the Government’s proposed reforms improve on the current position and are expected largely to meet the Government’s objectives.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the volume and value of trade passing through the ports of (1) Holyhead, and (2) Fishguard; and how these figures compare to corresponding figures from 2015.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The volume and value of trade passing through the ports of Holyhead and Fishguard in 2015 and 2024 (latest complete year of data) is as follows:
|
| EU trade | non-EU Trade |
2015 | - | 0 |
2024 | 13,257,529,744 | 20,840,991 |
1b: Trade in Goods Volume (kg) through Holyhead for 2015 and 2024 |
| EU trade | non-EU Trade |
2015 | - | 0 |
2024 | 2,038,324,780 | 968,560 |
| ||||
2a. Trade in Goods Value (£) through Fishguard for 2015 and 2024 | ||||
| ||||||||||||
| EU trade | non-EU Trade |
| |||||||||
2015 | - | 23,343 |
| |||||||||
2024 | 231,002,478 | 65,770,180 |
| |||||||||
Source: HMRC Overseas Trade Statistics, uktradeinfo, compiled on 10th September 2025
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) does not have port data prior to 2021 for EU trade as the UK was part of the European Union and customs declarations were not required for these movements. Trade data for intra-EU movements was collected via monthly Intrastat declarations which did not collect information on ports.
Figures for EU trade combine EU imports and EU exports. Similarly, figures for non-EU trade combine Non-EU imports and non-EU exports
The figures above exclude trade in low value consignments (namely imports and exports of an individual value of £873 or less) since HMRC does not have port data for trade in low value consignments.
Holyhead is primarily an EU facing port with no reported data for goods moving from/to non-EU countries in 2015.
The data provided covers goods that have been declared for import or export from either Holyhead or Fishguard but excludes data for goods entering Customs warehouses, freezones or freeports, and goods in transit (even when transhipment or temporary admissions are involved).
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is responsible for the collection and publication of data on imports and exports of goods to and from the UK. HMRC releases this information monthly, as an accredited official statistic called the Overseas Trade in Goods Statistics (OTS), which is available via their dedicated website (www.uktradeinfo.com).
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what changes they have made over the past five years in the application of comparability factors to the Barnett formula for determining cash payments to the Welsh government consequential to expenditure on railway services located solely in England.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Comparability factors are used to determine the extent to which a UK Government department’s spending is comparable (where policy is devolved) to the Welsh Government.
Comparability factors are generally updated prior to each spending review. In the past five years, the Department for Transport’s comparability factors were updated at the Spending Review in 2020 and again at the Spending Review in 2025. The most recent comparability factor applied to changes in the Department for Transport budgets at the Spending Review in 2025 was 33.5% for Wales. A comparability factor of 36.6% was applied at the Spending Reviews in 2020 and 2021.
Full details of changes to comparability factors over the past five years, including those for the Department for Transport, are published in the relevant Statement of Funding Policy:
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of additional Government expenditure arising from the war in Ukraine in each of the past three years.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Following Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine over three years ago, the UK has committed £21.8 billion for Ukraine.
The UK has been at the forefront in providing military, financial and humanitarian support to Ukraine for as long as it takes. This has included:
The UK will continue to honour the Prime Minister’s commitment to provide Ukraine with £3bn of military support each year until the end of the decade or for as long as needed. Securing a lasting peace for Ukraine is in the UK and wider Europe’s economic and security interests.