Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor for the Exchequer, what happens to money from the public purse not spent by the Office for Nuclear Radiation when there is budgetary underspend.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) operates a charging model which enables them to receive the majority of its funding through charges to industry clients. A proportion of ONR funding is provided by the Exchequer, via the Department for Work and Pensions as the ONR sponsorship department. Any resources, capital or cash authorised in the Supply Estimates but not used by the ONR at the end of a financial year are no longer authorised for use. Where the ONR has drawn down unspent cash from the Consolidated Fund, this will be immediately surrenderable back to the Fund.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the Government plans to help support those people affected by the collapse of the Safe Hand Funeral plan group.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
In January 2021, the government legislated to bring all pre-paid funeral plan providers and intermediaries within the regulatory remit of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) from 29 July 2022. This has ensured that 1.6 million funeral plan customers are, for the first time, protected by compulsory and robust regulation as they seek to put their affairs in order.
Safe Hands Plans went into administration in March 2022. The government understands that this will be very concerning for customers of Safe Hands.
While the detailed investigation being carried out by the administrators is ongoing, the government continues to work closely with the FCA to monitor the implementation of regulation in this sector.
The government has been supportive of steps taken by the sector to provide assistance to Safe Hands customers. Dignity and Co-op – two of the largest providers in the country – have recently offered Safe Hands’ customers new funeral plans at a substantially discounted price, which may be helpful to some affected planholders.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much data HM Revenue and Customs holds on each staff member in each government department.
Answered by Richard Fuller
HMRC holds data about its own staff for management purposes and to fulfil its functions, consistent with any other employer. This includes information such as grade, salary, bank details, and address.
For other Civil Servants outside of HMRC, HMRC would hold the same data as for any other employee in the tax system, in the private and public sectors. This is to administer the tax system.
HMRC publishes full details of the data held about all customers, how, and when it is used on their Privacy Notice, published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/data-protection-act-dpa-information-hm-revenue-and-customs-hold-about-you/data-protection-act-dpa-information-hm-revenue-and-customs-hold-about-you.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what fiscal steps he is taking to reduce the impact on households of the rise in the cost of living.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The government understands how the rising cost of living is making life harder for people. These are global challenges however, as set out in the Spring Statement, the government is providing support worth over £22 billion in 2022-23 to help families with these pressures.
For example, a typical family with 2 children where one adult is on the average employee salary and the other works 16 hours at the NLW will be around than £3,000 a year better off as a result of recent government action, notably the NICs primary threshold change, UC taper rate and work allowance changes, and increase in the National Living Wage, even taking account the introduction of the Health and Social Care Levy.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the ONS release entitled Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information, UK: June 2021, tables 11 and 12, if he will publish (a) regional and (b) NUTS1 and NUTS2 breakdowns of payrolled employees from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information; and if he will provide further breakdowns of those data by age.
Answered by Jesse Norman
HMRC and the ONS jointly publish statistics on earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information. The next release will be on Thursday 17th August and will be available on the ONS website: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/earningsandemploymentfrompayasyouearnrealtimeinformationuk/previousReleases
Breakdowns by NUTS1, NUTS2, and age are already available individually in the statistics, along with a breakdown by industry. The range of these statistics have been expanded since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and NUTS3 was published additionally for the first time in July. Further additional breakdowns will be released over the next few months and will be announced through the ONS release calendar.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 13 July 2021 to Question 29788 on Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and with reference to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) statistics: 1 July 2021, Table 12 - CJRS extension: employments on furlough by country, region, local authority and gender and Table 14 - CJRS extension: employments on furlough by age and gender, whether his Department plans to publish that data by country, region, local authority, gender and age as one dataset; and for what reason that cumulated data is not currently available.
Answered by Jesse Norman
HM Revenue and Customs will publish additional information on the number of employments on furlough in due course in a future release of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) statistics.
Previously published statistics on the CJRS include the cumulative number of employments put on furlough at any time since the start of the scheme. Figures by local authority are in table 1a of the 1 July release.
HMRC keeps the contents of the statistics under review and have developed them informed by user feedback.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme statistics: 1 July 2021, including data tables 12 and 14, if he will provide details of employments broken down by (a) country, (b) region, (c) local authority, (d) age and (e) gender as at 31 May 2021.
Answered by Jesse Norman
HM Revenue and Customs publish statistics on the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) regularly. The latest statistics were published on 1 July 2021 and can be found on GOV.UK.
The number of employments on furlough at 31 May 2021 broken down by the requested categories are available in the spreadsheet accompanying the release: a) country and region by gender (table 11); b) local authority and gender (table 12); and, c) age and gender (table 14).
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the statistics on earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information and tables 11 and 12, if he will publish payrolled employees from PAYE RTI by (a) region, (b) NUTS1 and NUTS2 and (c) age.
Answered by Jesse Norman
HMRC and the ONS jointly publish statistics on earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information. The next release will be on Thursday 15 July and will be available on the ONS website: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/earningsandemploymentfrompayasyouearnrealtimeinformationuk/previousReleases.
Breakdowns by NUTS1, NUTS2 and age are already available individually in the statistics, along with a breakdown by industry. The range of these statistics has been expanded since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with NUTS3 being published for the first time in July. Further additional breakdowns will be released over the next few months and will be announced through the ONS release calendar.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment he has made of the level of skills shortages in the labour market in each (a) sector and (b) region; and what method he used to make that assessment.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Chancellor makes regular assessments of the skills shortages in various sectors and across the UK.
Through the Plan for Jobs announced in July 2020 and built on at the Spring Budget we significantly extended training opportunities for adults so that they can gain the skills they need to get a job. This support included funding to triple the number of traineeships and sector-based work academies, expanded incentives for employers to hire apprentices, and support for school leavers to take high value training courses where employment opportunities are not immediately available.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of current youth employment data on national output in each (a) region and (b) sector of the economy.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The pandemic is expected to leave lasting ‘scars’ on the UK economy's supply capacity, reducing the overall level of output in the long term. The OBR currently assumes there will be a 3% scarring impact on the UK economy from Covid-19, of which 1% comes from labour market supply impacts. This analysis is based on the impact of the pandemic on the labour market overall. More recent forecasts from the Bank of England and the International Monetary Fund have revised down their view of scarring in light of recent data. Scarring in the labour market is likely to occur because it can take a long time for some unemployed workers to retrain or relocate appropriately.
That is why the Government has put in place a comprehensive package of support through our Plan for Jobs to help jobs and livelihoods and support the economy. We are continuing to protect jobs in every nation and region of the UK, including for younger workers, through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) and Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS). Provisional HMRC statistics indicate that as at 31 May 2021, 322,400 jobs were furloughed where the employee was aged 24 or under.
As well as protecting jobs, we are also supporting young people to find new employment opportunities. This includes the £2bn Kickstart Scheme, which will create hundreds of thousands of new, fully subsidised jobs for young people, and our new Youth Offer, which provides a guaranteed foundation of support to all 18-24 year olds on Universal Credit in the Intensive Work Search group.