Asked by: David Davis (Conservative - Haltemprice and Howden)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of a UK central bank digital currency on the right to privacy.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Individuals’ privacy, user control and the proper use of data in line with UK data protection laws are of paramount importance to the design of any digital currency.
A digital pound would be subject to rigorous standards of privacy and data protection. Neither the Government nor the Bank of England would have access to personal data, nor be able to see how consumers use their money.
The Government has committed to bring forward legislation in Parliament prior to any Digital Pound being introduced.
The Government and Bank of England consulted on these privacy features of the potential digital pound over February-June 2023, and are currently reviewing the feedback received. A consultation response will be published in due course.
Asked by: David Davis (Conservative - Haltemprice and Howden)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an estimate of the loss of revenue resulting from ceasing to tax business broadband upgrades for homeowners as a benefit in kind.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Government’s ambition is to connect at least 85 per cent of UK premises to gigabit-capable broadband by 2025, and for nationwide connectivity (at least 99 per cent) to be realised by 2030. Project Gigabit is the government’s £5 billion programme that will ensure the whole of the UK benefits from gigabit connectivity by providing subsidy to deliver gigabit-capable connectivity to uncommercial premises, which are typically in rural or remote locations. Over 75 per cent of UK premises can now access gigabit-capable broadband, a huge leap forward from July 2019, when coverage was just 8 per cent.
Regarding the tax treatment of home broadband, under long-standing rules, payments from employers reimbursing employees for reasonable additional costs they incur while having to work from home are exempt from taxation. This includes the cost of providing broadband to an employee where a connection was not already available, the employee requires broadband to work from home, and the broadband is used mainly for business purposes.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) does not hold information on the revenue received from taxes on businesses that provide their employees with business broadband for their residential properties.
Asked by: David Davis (Conservative - Haltemprice and Howden)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of taxing upgrades to business broadband for non-business properties.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Government’s ambition is to connect at least 85 per cent of UK premises to gigabit-capable broadband by 2025, and for nationwide connectivity (at least 99 per cent) to be realised by 2030. Project Gigabit is the government’s £5 billion programme that will ensure the whole of the UK benefits from gigabit connectivity by providing subsidy to deliver gigabit-capable connectivity to uncommercial premises, which are typically in rural or remote locations. Over 75 per cent of UK premises can now access gigabit-capable broadband, a huge leap forward from July 2019, when coverage was just 8 per cent.
Regarding the tax treatment of home broadband, under long-standing rules, payments from employers reimbursing employees for reasonable additional costs they incur while having to work from home are exempt from taxation. This includes the cost of providing broadband to an employee where a connection was not already available, the employee requires broadband to work from home, and the broadband is used mainly for business purposes.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) does not hold information on the revenue received from taxes on businesses that provide their employees with business broadband for their residential properties.
Asked by: David Davis (Conservative - Haltemprice and Howden)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has conducted a cost-benefit analysis of the impacts of treating business broadband as a benefit in kind.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Government’s ambition is to connect at least 85 per cent of UK premises to gigabit-capable broadband by 2025, and for nationwide connectivity (at least 99 per cent) to be realised by 2030. Project Gigabit is the government’s £5 billion programme that will ensure the whole of the UK benefits from gigabit connectivity by providing subsidy to deliver gigabit-capable connectivity to uncommercial premises, which are typically in rural or remote locations. Over 75 per cent of UK premises can now access gigabit-capable broadband, a huge leap forward from July 2019, when coverage was just 8 per cent.
Regarding the tax treatment of home broadband, under long-standing rules, payments from employers reimbursing employees for reasonable additional costs they incur while having to work from home are exempt from taxation. This includes the cost of providing broadband to an employee where a connection was not already available, the employee requires broadband to work from home, and the broadband is used mainly for business purposes.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) does not hold information on the revenue received from taxes on businesses that provide their employees with business broadband for their residential properties.
Asked by: David Davis (Conservative - Haltemprice and Howden)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has made an assessment of the annual VAT revenue generated from companies installing business broadband in employee properties.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The information requested is not available. HMRC does not hold information on VAT revenue from specific products or services because businesses are not required to provide figures at a product level on their VAT returns, as this would impose an excessive administrative burden on them.
Asked by: David Davis (Conservative - Haltemprice and Howden)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what revenues his Department received from taxes on businesses that provide their employees with business broadband for their residential properties in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) does not hold information on the revenue received from taxes on businesses that provide their employees with business broadband for their residential properties.
Asked by: David Davis (Conservative - Haltemprice and Howden)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has made an assessment of the potential financial merits of maintaining business broadband as a taxable benefit in kind.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Government’s ambition is to connect at least 85 per cent of UK premises to gigabit-capable broadband by 2025, and for nationwide connectivity (at least 99 per cent) to be realised by 2030. Project Gigabit is the government’s £5 billion programme that will ensure the whole of the UK benefits from gigabit connectivity by providing subsidy to deliver gigabit-capable connectivity to uncommercial premises, which are typically in rural or remote locations. Over 75 per cent of UK premises can now access gigabit-capable broadband, a huge leap forward from July 2019, when coverage was just 8 per cent.
Regarding the tax treatment of home broadband, under long-standing rules, payments from employers reimbursing employees for reasonable additional costs they incur while having to work from home are exempt from taxation. This includes the cost of providing broadband to an employee where a connection was not already available, the employee requires broadband to work from home, and the broadband is used mainly for business purposes.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) does not hold information on the revenue received from taxes on businesses that provide their employees with business broadband for their residential properties.
Asked by: David Davis (Conservative - Haltemprice and Howden)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the confidence intervals are for the (a) Office for Budget Responsibility's and (b) Bank of England's economic forecasts.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The OBR is widely recognised as providing independent, credible and high-quality analysis and the OECD has described the OBR as a “model independent fiscal institution”.
The OBR is also required by legislation to annually evaluate its forecasts in a Forecast Evaluation Report (link). The OBR also began to publish fan charts demonstrating the confidence intervals around its forecasts for key fiscal metrics in the October 2021 Economic and Fiscal Outlook (link).
The Bank of England’s forecasting capability was reviewed by David Stockton in 2012 (link) and he found that “fundamentally, the forecast process and the associated forecasting tools employed by the Bank in support of its monetary policy decision making are sound.” It was reviewed again by the Bank’s Independent Evaluating Office in 2015 (link). The Bank also publishes confidence intervals summarising the Monetary Policy Committee’s collective judgement of the uncertainty around the forecasts for GDP, unemployment, and CPI inflation, in the Monetary Policy Report (link).
Asked by: David Davis (Conservative - Haltemprice and Howden)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether there is a statutory basis for HMRC's policy to promote among employers the use of statements on payslips supporting the National Insurance contributions rise in April 2022.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
There is no statutory obligation on employers to include statements on payslips explaining the rise in National Insurance contributions (NICs).
The temporary increases to rates of NICs for the tax year 2022-23 precede the introduction of the Health and Social Care levy as a new, separate tax from April 2023. The legislation which introduces the Levy requires it to be separately identified on payslips, alongside NICs and Income Tax, from April 2023 onwards.
HMRC, as part of their role in promoting greater understanding of the tax system, have asked employers to include factual messaging on payslips in 2022-23 to highlight the temporary change in NICs rates before the new Levy begins in 2023-24, however this is not mandatory.
Asked by: David Davis (Conservative - Haltemprice and Howden)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to tackle fraud in the covid-19 business support schemes.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Government has consistently stated that fraud is unacceptable, and we are taking action on multiple fronts to recover money lost to error and fraud and, where necessary, take legal action on those who have sought to exploit the Covid support schemes. It was right to establish the schemes quickly and in a way that they could be accessed easily by the millions who needed support.
Given the unprecedented efforts that the Government have made to protect jobs and livelihoods during this pandemic, it would have been impossible to prevent all related fraud. However, we have taken reasonable steps, and will continue to do so, to deflect and combat that fraud, and we will continue to be vigilant.
Robust measures were put in place to control error and fraud in the key COVID-19 support schemes from their inception. For instance, to minimise the risk of fraud and error and unverified claims, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Self-Employment Income Support Scheme were designed in a way to prevent ineligible claims being made up front, and made payments for employees and businesses using existing data held on HMRC’s systems. That included cut-off dates around scheme eligibility and the need for customers to be registered for pay-as-you-earn online or self-assessment.
To further bolster anti-fraud measures on HMRC-delivered covid support schemes, at the Spring Budget last year, the Government invested more than £100 million in a Taxpayer Protection Taskforce of more than 1,200 HMRC staff to combat Covid-related fraud. This Taskforce is expected to recover between £800 million and £1 billion from fraudulent or incorrect payments during 2021-22 and 2022-23. In addition, HMRC has so far stopped or recovered £743 million of overclaimed grants in 2020/21.
Regarding the Bounce Back Loan Scheme, the Government continues to work closely with the British Business Bank, lenders and enforcement agencies to tackle fraud and to recover as many fraudulent loans as possible. This is on top of the £2.2 billion worth of fraudulent applications that were prevented by upfront checks.
In addition, as part of the Spring Budget last year, we announced plans to significantly strengthen enforcement activity against fraudulent Bounce Back Loans, including new powers for the Insolvency Service to tackle rogue directors and investing in the National Investigation Service to investigate serious fraud.