Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what fiscal support is available to (a) churches and (b) faith-based charities facing (i) increased energy costs and (ii) a decline in donations.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises the importance of supporting churches and other listed places of worship.
Through the National Lottery Heritage fund, churches have access to grants ranging from £10,000 to £10million to support repair work for listed buildings and address issues around workforce and volunteer capability to manage heritage. Alongside this, the Government has extended the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme, with a budget of £23m until 31 March 2026, and this provides churches and other listed places of worship with grants of up to £25,000. This scheme will continue to enable religious organisations to claim grants covering eligible VAT costs paid towards repairs and renovations.
On support for increased energy costs, in the short-term, the Government wants to provide businesses with better protection from being locked into unfair and expensive energy contracts, and more redress when they have a complaint. Last year, the Government launched a consultation on introducing regulation of Third-Party Intermediaries (TPIs), such as energy brokers. This is aimed at enhancing consumer protections, particularly for non-domestic consumers. The consultation has now closed, and a Government response will follow in due course once all feedback has been reviewed.
From 19 December 2024 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) with fewer than 50 employees can now access free support to resolve issues with their energy supplier through the Energy Ombudsman. This means that 99% of British businesses can now access this service with outcomes ranging up to £20,000 in financial awards
Charities may also, depending on their status, be able to benefit from buying their energy through Crown Commercial Service. Crown Commercial Service are a trading fund of Cabinet Office and their frameworks allow charities to benefit from the collective purchasing power of the UK public sector.
More broadly, within the tax system, we provide support to charities through a range of reliefs and exemptions, including reliefs for charitable giving, with more than £6 billion in charitable reliefs provided to charities, CASCs and their donors in 2023 to 2024.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much revenue she expects to raise from changes to Agricultural Property Relief in Northern Ireland; and what assessment she has made of the potential impact of those changes on farming families in Northern Ireland.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The overall changes to both agricultural property relief and business property relief from 6 April 2026 are expected to raise £520 million in 2029-30, based on the latest available data. This is the total UK revenue expected to be raised from estates with relevant assets across all types of businesses.
Up to around 520 estates making claims for agricultural property relief, including those that also claim for business property relief, across the UK are expected to be affected by this policy in 2026-27. This means almost three-quarters of estates claiming agricultural property relief, including those that also claim for business property relief, will not pay any more tax as a result of these changes in 2026-27, based on the latest available data.
The Government is aware of the concerns from the farming industry in Northern Ireland. Information from claims is not recorded to enable regional or national breakdowns of the revenue or number of estates expected to be affected. For more information, please see my recent letter to the Chair of the Northern Ireland Select Committee: https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/46267/documents/232537/default/.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what discussions she has had with her counterpart in Northern Ireland on ensuring that businesses in Northern Ireland that pay into the Apprenticeship Levy receive direct funding from the levy.
Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
HMT ministers engage regularly with the Northern Ireland Finance Minister through the Finance Inter-Ministerial Committee.
While the Apprenticeship Levy is UK wide, apprenticeship policy and spending is devolved. This means that the devolved governments receive funding through the Barnett formula in relation to English apprenticeship spending as part of their block grant. The Block Grant Transparency publication breaks down all changes in the devolved governments’ block grant funding from the 2015 Spending Review up to and including Main Estimates 2023-24. The most recent report was published in July 2023. It is for the devolved governments to allocate their funding in devolved areas as they see fit, including investing in their skills programmes.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the long-term sustainability of the financial settlement provided to Northern Ireland under the Barnett formula.
Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The independent Northern Ireland Fiscal Council calculated that the relative need in Northern Ireland is 24% more per head than the rest of the UK for equivalent spending.
As part of the 2024 restoration of the Northern Ireland Executive (NIE) the UK Government and Northern Ireland Executive agreed to add a 24% needs-based factor into the Barnett Formula from 2024-25. This is part of a financial package worth over £3.3 billion.
Including this additional funding, the Northern Ireland Executive is being funded above its relative need in 2024-25. The UK Government will continue to work with the Northern Ireland Executive to agree a final Fiscal Framework.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he (a) has had and (b) plans to have discussions with (i) Cabinet colleagues and (ii) relevant stakeholders on the potential merits of increasing the tax free childcare allowance.
Answered by Laura Trott - Shadow Secretary of State for Education
HM Treasury work closely with other Government departments and relevant stakeholders on all elements of childcare policy, including Tax-Free Childcare.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he is taking steps to ensure access to ATMs in rural locations.
Answered by Bim Afolami
The government recognises that cash continues to be used by millions of people across the UK, including those who may be in vulnerable groups.
The government legislated through the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 to establish a new legislative framework to protect access to cash. This establishes the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as the lead regulator for access to cash and provides it with responsibility and powers to seek to ensure reasonable provision of cash withdrawal and deposit facilities.
Following this, the government published a Cash Access Policy Statement, which the FCA must take into account in exercising its powers. This sets out that the vast majority of people in predominately rural areas of the UK should have access to cash deposit and withdrawal services within a maximum of 3 miles of where they live. The government’s policy statement is available on gov.uk: Cash Access Policy Statement
Regarding ATM provision specifically, LINK (the scheme that runs the UK's largest ATM network) also has commitments to protect the broad geographic spread of free-to-use ATMs. It is held to account against these commitments by the Payment Systems Regulator.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has made a recent assessment of the impact of increased (a) car and (b) home insurance on the cost of living.
Answered by Bim Afolami
Insurers make commercial decisions about the pricing of insurance based on their assessment on the likelihood and expected cost of a claim. The Government does not intervene in these commercial decisions by insurers as this could damage competition in the market.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is the independent regulator and responsible for supervising the insurance industry. The FCA have introduced several reforms, including the Consumer Duty rules, to ensure consumers are treated fairly in regard to pricing. The FCA can and does act in appropriate cases where firms are breaching its rules.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what safeguards HMRC has in place to ensure the authenticity of digital signatures on paperwork provided by third-party businesses acting on behalf of their clients in exchanges with HMRC.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston
HMRC operates a risk-based approach to the verification of signatures upon receipt into their systems. Where there are reasons to doubt that the taxpayer has provided the signature themselves HMRC seeks assurances from the agent, intermediary or taxpayer directly to validate the authorisation and, if required, request further information about the processes that the agent uses to obtain authorisation and/or signatures.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the Barnett consequential arising from the pay settlement for NHS workers in England is.
Answered by John Glen
The Barnett formula is applied when departmental budgets change – not when departments announce how they are spending their budgets.
Discussions between HMT and DHSC on the funding implications, should a pay deal be agreed, are ongoing.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of extending the Energy and Trade Intensive Industry scheme to include primary agricultural production.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
As part of the Energy Bills Discount Scheme (EBDS), we have taken a consistent approach to identifying the most energy and trade intensive sectors, with all sectors that meet agreed thresholds for energy and trade intensity eligible for Energy and Trade Intensive Industries (ETII) component of the scheme. These thresholds have been set at sectors falling above the 80th percentile for energy intensity and 60th percentile for trade intensity, plus any sectors eligible for the existing energy compensation and exemption schemes. We have also published further information on the methodology which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/energy-bills-discount-scheme-factsheet/energy-bills-discount-scheme-energy-and-trade-intense-industries-assessment-methodology
All other eligible businesses, except for those experiencing low energy costs, will automatically receive a unit discount on their bills of up to £19.61/MW for electricity, and £6.97/MW for gas.
We remain committed to supporting our farmers to produce high quality food and to increase the productivity, resilience, and sustainability of their businesses. That is why we have maintained farm budgets across this Parliament as promised, each year providing an average of £2.4 billion in England, £621m in Scotland, £340m in Wales, and £330m in Northern Ireland.