Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury plans to respond to the correspondence from the hon. Member for Christchurch of 3 April 2025, reference MC2025/08032.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The letter is being carefully considered and a response will be issued by11 July.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will meet with the hon. Member for Christchurch to discuss the Bank of England (Inflation Targets) Bill.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
I would be happy to meet with the Honourable Member for Christchurch to discuss the private members bill he introduced on Bank of England (Inflation Targets) as the Chancellor’s parliamentary deputy on economic issues.
My office will contact the Honourable Member in due course to arrange a meeting.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the Prime Minister's speech entitled Keir Starmer's speech on fixing the foundations of our country: 27 August 2024, whether she plans to increase compensation for people impacted by the regulatory maladministration of Equitable Life.
Answered by Tulip Siddiq
The Equitable Life Payment Scheme has been fully wound down and closed since 2016 and there are no plans to reopen any decisions relating to the Payment Scheme or review the £1.5 billion funding allocation previously made to it. Further guidance on the status of the Payment Scheme after closure is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/equitable-life-payment-scheme#closure-of-the-scheme.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made on the potential impact of VAT on private school fees on Christian schools.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
On 29 July, the Government announced that, as of 1 January 2025, all education services and vocational training provided by a private school in the UK for a charge will be subject to VAT at the standard rate of 20 per cent. This will also apply to boarding services provided by private schools.
A technical note setting out the details of the policy has been published online here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-on-private-school-fees-removing-the-charitable-rates-relief-for-private-schools(opens in a new tab).
Draft VAT legislation was also published alongside this technical note, forming a technical consultation, which closed on 15 September. As part of this technical consultation, the Government engaged with a broad range of stakeholders.
Whilst developing these policies, the Government has carefully considered the impact that they will have on pupils and their families across both the state and private sector, as well as the impact they will have on state and private schools. Following scrutiny of the Government's costings by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), details of the Government’s assessment of the expected impacts of these policy changes will be published at the Budget on 30 October in a Tax Information and Impact Note.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many responses were received to the consultation entitled Public Sector Exit Payments : A New Controls Process for High Exit Payments which closed on 17 October 2022; and for what reason a response has not yet been issued.
Answered by Laura Trott - Shadow Secretary of State for Education
The Government received 32 responses to the consultation on 'Public Sector Exit Payments: A New Controls Process for High Exit Payments'. HM Treasury will publish the government response in due course.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the total value was of (a) cigars, (b) snuff and (c) other tobacco products exported from the UK in (i) 2022 and (ii) 2023; and what were the principal countries of destination for those exports.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston
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 a National Statistic called the Overseas Trade in Goods Statistics (OTS), which is available via their dedicated website (www.uktradeinfo.com). From this website, it is possible to build your own data tables based upon bespoke search criteria.
Classification codes (according to the Harmonised System) are available to assist you in accessing published trade statistics data in the UK Global Tariff. Goods moving to and from the UK are identified by an eight-digit commodity code. These are publicly available from the UK Trade Tariff at https://www.gov.uk/trade-tariff.
The data on these exports and for other tobacco products can be obtained from www.uktradeinfo.com.
If you need help or support in constructing a table from the data on uktradeinfo, please contact uktradeinfo@hmrc.gov.uk.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the value of imports of (a) vapes and (b) vaping equipment was in (i) 2022 and (ii) 2023; and what proportion of the total value of those imports came from China.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston
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 a National Statistic called the Overseas Trade in Goods Statistics (OTS), which is available via their dedicated website (www.uktradeinfo.com). From this website, it is possible to build your own data tables based upon bespoke search criteria.
Classification codes (according to the Harmonised System) are available to assist you in accessing published trade statistics data in the UK Global Tariff. Goods moving to and from the UK are identified by an eight-digit commodity code. These are publicly available from the UK Trade Tariff at https://www.gov.uk/trade-tariff.
The data on the import for these items, including country of export can be obtained from www.uktradeinfo.com.
If you need help or support in constructing a table from the data on uktradeinfo, please contact uktradeinfo@hmrc.gov.uk.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 6 February 2024 to Question 12498 on Public Sector: Redundancy Pay, and having regard to the fact that the Whole of Government accounts for the financial years ending 2022 and 2023 will not be published until July 2024 and July 2025, if he will provide the information requested for those years.
Answered by Laura Trott - Shadow Secretary of State for Education
The Whole of Government Accounts provide the most complete overview of exit payments in any given year. In advance of them, reference can be made to individual departments’ Annual Report and Accounts, where information on the usage of exit payments for the financial years 2021/22 and 2022/23 is available. These can be found online using the following link:
Annual Report and Accounts for Central Government Departments
Data on exit payments made by Local Authorities between 2014 and 2023 is available under the heading ‘exit payments’ using the following link: Statistical Data Sets Local Government Finance
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the consultation entitled Public Sector Exit Payments: a new controls process for high exit payments, which closed on 17 October 2022, for what reason his Department has not yet responded to that consolation; and when he plans to respond.
Answered by Laura Trott - Shadow Secretary of State for Education
The Government is considering the responses to this consultation and will publish a response in due course.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of levels of public sector productivity in each financial year between 2018-19 and 2022-23; and what his planned timetable is for publication of the Public Service Productivity Review.
Answered by Laura Trott - Shadow Secretary of State for Education
ONS publish annual National Statistics on public service productivity up to 2020. The next annual statistic for 2021 will be published in March. ONS also publish estimates of annual public service productivity for 2021 and 2022. An experimental estimate for 2023 will come after the Spring Budget. This information is available online
There will be an update on the Public Sector Productivity Programme at Spring Budget.