Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her Department's policies of the report entitled Fix the CMS: key findings from our research on child maintenance, published by Gingerbread in November 2024.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) continues to engage regularly with stakeholders as we consider CMS reform. We are currently considering the recommendations and our response to the Gingerbread report ‘Fix the CMS’.
The CMS Service Modernisation Programme has delivered improvements to the customer experience enabling parents to access their on-line My Child Maintenance Case, ensuring parents can report changes of circumstances and access their digital communications at any time of the day. In addition, caseworker training to support vulnerable customers has been updated following invaluable engagement with stakeholders.
The CMS has recently consulted on significant reforms and are analysing the responses. This included removing the Direct Pay service and managing all CMS cases in one service to allow the CMS to tackle non-compliance faster. The consultation also sought views on how victims and survivors of domestic abuse can be better supported to use CMS and whether removing Direct Pay completely would benefit victims and survivors of domestic abuse. The Government will publish a response in due course.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of extending reimbursement of employer National Insurance contributions to the voluntary sector.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
At the recent Budget, the government took a number of difficult decisions on tax, welfare, and spending to fix the foundations of the public finances, fund public services, and restore economic stability.
Ministers have met with representatives from the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector to discuss this issue and the department is aware of their concerns about the impacts of the increase to employer National Insurance Contributions (NICs).
The government recognises the need to protect the smallest businesses and charities, which is why we have more than doubled the Employment Allowance to £10,500. This means that more than half of businesses (including charities) with NICs liabilities will either gain or see no change next year.
We are also expanding eligibility of the Employment Allowance by removing the £100,000 eligibility threshold, to simplify and reform employer NICs so that all eligible employers now benefit. Businesses and charities will still be able to claim employer NICs reliefs including those for under 21s and under 25 apprentices, where eligible.
The Government publishes Tax Information and Impact Notes (TIINs) for tax policy changes, which give a clear explanation of the policy objective and an assessment of the impacts. The TIIN for the employer NICs changes was published on 13 November 2024.
Within the tax system, we provide support to charities through a range of reliefs and exemptions, including reliefs for charitable giving. More than £6 billion in charitable reliefs was provided to charities, Community Amateur Sports Clubs and their donors in 2023 to 2024. The biggest individual reliefs provided are Gift Aid at £1.6 billion and business rates relief at nearly £2.4 billion.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of proposed changes to employer National Insurance contributions on the voluntary drug and alcohol treatment sector.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
A Tax Information and Impact Note that covers the employer NICs changes was published by HMRC on 13 November and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-the-class-1-national-insurance-contributions-secondary-threshold-the-secondary-class-1-national-insurance-contributions-rate-and-the-empl/changes-to-the-class-1-national-insurance-contributions-secondary-threshold-the-secondary-class-1-national-insurance-contributions-rate-and-the-empl .
The Government has protected the smallest businesses from the impact of the increase to Employer National Insurance by increasing the Employment Allowance from £5,000 to £10,500, which means that 865,000 employers will pay no NICs at all next year, more than half of employers will see no change or will gain overall from this package, and all eligible employers will be able to employ up to four full-time workers on the National Living Wage and pay no employer NICs.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of the National Audit Office's report entitled Managing conflicts of interest, HC 307, published on 22 November 2024.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
We are committed to restoring public confidence in government and ensuring that all those in public service are held to the highest standards.
We will consider carefully the National Audit Office’s recommendations in its recent report ‘Managing Conflicts of Interest’.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much her Department has spent on consultancy fees in each year since 2021.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government is committed to restoring the public finances and delivering value for the taxpayer.
As part of this wider mission, the government has pledged to reduce wasteful spend on non-essential and expensive consultants in order to save over £1.2 billion by 2026.
The latest available data that has been audited and published as part of the Group Annual Report and Accounts, is linked below:
The data for post-March 2024 is live and unaudited. Additionally, due to the department’s accruals accounting, the partial year’s data may be incomplete and misleading. Therefore, we are unable to provide data beyond March 2024.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how much her Department has spent on consultancy fees in each year since 2021.
Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government is committed to restoring the public finances and delivering value for the taxpayer.
As part of this wider mission, the Government has pledged to reduce wasteful spend on non-essential and expensive consultants in order to save over £1.2 billion by 2026.
Figures for consultancy spend are included each year in the Department's annual report. The corresponding figure for FY2024-25 is expected to be published by the end of July 2025.
Details of contracts awarded valued at £10,000 (inc VAT) or more are published on: https://www.gov.uk/contracts-finder.