Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of lowering the National Insurance contribution threshold to £5,000 on small businesses that employ part time employees.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government has taken a number of difficult but necessary decisions on tax, welfare, and spending to fix the public finances.
One of the toughest decisions we took was to raise the rate of employer National Insurance contributions (NICs) from 13.8% to 15%, whilst reducing the per-employee threshold at which employers start to pay National Insurance (the Secondary Threshold) from £9,100 to £5,000.
The Government decided to protect the smallest businesses from these changes by increasing the Employment Allowance from £5,000 to £10,500. This means that next year, 865,000 employers will pay no NICs at all, and more than half of all employers will either gain or will see no change.
A Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN) was published alongside the introduction of Bill containing the changes to employer NICs, setting out the impact of the policy.
Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for what reason the Government has increased vehicle excise duty for (a) electric and (b) low emission vehicles; and whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of this on trends in the level of consumers switching from (i) petrol and (ii) diesel vehicles to electric vehicles.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) is a tax on car ownership from which electric vehicles are currently exempt. As announced by the previous Government at Autumn Statement 2022, from April 2025, electric and hybrid cars, vans and motorcycles will begin to pay VED alongside petrol and diesel vehicles.
The Policy Costings document published alongside Autumn Statement 2022 when the change was announced estimates the impact on electric vehicle take-up to be “negligible”.
The Government is committed to supporting the transition to Zero Emission Vehicles and announced a number of measures at Budget to support EV take-up. VED First Year Rates are changing from 2025-26, with higher rates for polluting hybrid, petrol and diesel vehicles. In addition the Government maintained incentives for the purchase of EVs within the Company Car Tax and Salary Sacrifice regimes, and extended the 100% First Year Allowances for businesses purchasing zero emission cars and installing chargepoint infrastructure.
Revenue from motoring taxes helps ensure we can continue to fund the vital public services and infrastructure that people and families across the UK expect.
Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of proposed changes to inheritance tax on (a) small family farm closures and (b) internal food production security.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government published information about the reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief at www.gov.uk/government/publications/agricultural-property-relief-and-business-property-relief-reforms.
It is expected that up to around 2,000 estates will be affected by the changes to APR and BPR in 2026-27, with around half of those being claims that involve AIM shares. Almost three-quarters of estates claiming agricultural property relief (including those claiming agricultural property relief and business property relief together) are expected to be unaffected by these reforms.
The UK has robust domestic food production, and these reforms will only affect a small number of estates. The small number of landowners affected will not necessarily need to sell the land and, if they choose to, then it does not necessarily mean the land would stop being used for food production. At Autumn Budget 2024, the Government announced the largest ever investment in sustainable food production in England.
In accordance with standard practice, a tax information and impact note will be published alongside the draft legislation before the relevant Finance Bill.