Asked by: Dominic Raab (Conservative - Esher and Walton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what measures he is taking to improve the UK's economic competitiveness.
Answered by Simon Kirby
In any modern economy improving competitiveness means boosting productivity, as it is the key long-term driver of economic prospects. This government has taken significant steps to tackle this issue, investing an additional £23bn in areas crucial to productivity through the National Productivity Investment Fund. At budget we went further, providing an additional £500m per year of spending to support improvements in technical education.
Asked by: Dominic Raab (Conservative - Esher and Walton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many people suspected by UK law enforcement of involvement in (a) organised crime, (b) financial crime and (c) serious human rights abuses have been subject to asset (i) freezes or (ii) seizures by HM Revenue and Customs in each of the last eight years.
Answered by Jane Ellison
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) Management Information systems within the Fraud Investigation Service (FIS) do not capture the data sought in a way which is readily available to provide the information requested. HMRC systems do not record which assets may be seized against a Restraint Order unless a Confiscation Order has been raised. Collating the data sought would therefore incur disproportionate costs.
FIS does also provide data to the Home Office Joint Assets Recovery Database system but it is not categorised in a format that would provide the requested data. In order to extract this information, it would require reference to case paperwork and would therefore incur disproportionate costs.
Asked by: Dominic Raab (Conservative - Esher and Walton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many times HM Revenue and Customs has used the direct recovery of debts power; and what estimate he has made of the average sum so recovered.
Answered by Jane Ellison
HM Revenue and Customs’ (HMRC) Direct Recovery of Debt (DRD) power came into force in November 2015.So far this year, following visits by HMRC staff to taxpayers at their homes/offices as part of the DRD process, £20m in unpaid tax has been collected from those with the means to pay without actually needing to exercise the full DRD power, as this is a last resort. As part of this process, the need to deduct directly from a debtors bank account has taken place twice, with the average sum recovered being £39,246.
Asked by: Dominic Raab (Conservative - Esher and Walton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the (a) number of cheques sent to HM Revenue and Customs that were fraudulently intercepted and (b) value of these cheques in each month since December 2013.
Answered by David Gauke
The table below sets out the information requested where it is alleged that cheques intended for HMRC were fraudulently intercepted with context comparing these cases with the total number of cheques and related value processed by HMRC.
Year | Month | No. of cases reported | Value of cases | Total cheques banked Dec 13 - Dec 14 | ||||
2013 | December | 19 | £37,125.42 | Volume | 5,765,106 | |||
2014 | January | 12 | £17,889.40 | Value | £22,127,227,566 | |||
February | 9 | £28,082.49 | ||||||
March | 37 | £106,859.00 | Stolen cheques as a percentage | |||||
April | 11 | £18,496.89 | Volume | 0.0032% | ||||
May | 14 | £29,668.29 | Value | 0.0017% | ||||
June | 15 | £60,297.28 | ||||||
July | 20 | £28,223.64 | ||||||
August | 19 | £24,241.32 | ||||||
September | 8 | £11,732.22 | ||||||
October | 7 | £7,135.32 | ||||||
November | 9 | £7,799.25 | ||||||
December | 3 | £8,747.92 | ||||||
183 | £386,298.44 | |||||||
HMRC encourages customers, through Internet and other guidance material not to pay by cheque and to take advantage of more secure payment methods and pay electronically.
Asked by: Dominic Raab (Conservative - Esher and Walton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment he has made of (a) levels of bank account switching by customers, (b) trends in bank account switching in the last three years, (c) the average time it takes for customers to switch banks and (d) the process for switching banks and customers' perceptions of the ease or difficulty of so doing.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government charged the UK banking industry with delivering a new Current Account Switch Service to make it simpler, safer, and faster to switch current account providers. The new service launched in September 2013, and so far has had a positive impact with switching levels increasing by 22 per cent in its first year, compared to the previous year.
The Payments Council publish a “switching dashboard” quarterly, which is available on their website and includes information on awareness, confidence, service performance, and switching levels.
Asked by: Dominic Raab (Conservative - Esher and Walton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the combined financial effect on (a) small and (b) all businesses of government policy on business rates (i) in cash terms and (ii) in real terms since May 2010.
Answered by David Gauke
To help support businesses and create jobs, the government has taken action to reduce the burden of business rates on ratepayers in every year from 2010-11 to 2015-16.
The total cost of these measures has been £4.1bn over this Parliament. This is a total of £4.2bn in real terms, based on 2014-15 prices.
Of this, the government has spent £2bn on reducing bills for small businesses through the doubling of Small Business Rate Relief. As a result, all businesses occupying a single property with a rateable value of less than £6000 have been fully exempt from business rates since October 2010.
In 2015-16 alone, ratepayers will save £1.6bn on their business rates bills. This includes 575,000 small businesses, of whom 385,000 will pay no rates at all.
The government has also changed the law to allow business rates bills to be spread over 12 months rather than 10 months, to help with cash flow and affordability.
Asked by: Dominic Raab (Conservative - Esher and Walton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much revenue has (a) accrued and (b) he expects will accrue as a result of the measures taken in 2012 to extend VAT to alterations to listed buildings.
Answered by David Gauke
Data is not available on the VAT accrued from alterations to listed buildings as this is not itemised separately on VAT returns.
At Budget 2012, estimates of the Exchequer impact were published in the relevant Tax Impact and Information Note (TIIN):
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/budget2012/tiin-4806.pdf
Asked by: Dominic Raab (Conservative - Esher and Walton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much he forecasts will accrue to the Exchequer from (a) the Carbon Price Floor and (b) the EU Emissions Trading Scheme in each of the next six years.
Answered by David Gauke
Table B.3 of the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Autumn Statement 2014 sets out forecasts for Exchequer revenue from the Climate Change Levy and from EU Emissions Trading System auction receipts for each year up to financial year 2019/20. Receipts accruing from the Carbon Price Floor are incorporated within the Climate Change Levy revenue forecast. Both forecasts are shown in the table below.
14/15 | 15/16 | 16/17 | 17/18 | 18/19 | 19/20 | |
Climate Change Levy (£bn) | 1.7 | 2.1 | 2.0 | 1.8 | 1.7 | 1.6 |
EU ETS auction receipts (£bn) | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.6 |
Asked by: Dominic Raab (Conservative - Esher and Walton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the net Exchequer effect of green (a) taxes and (b) subsidies in the last five years.
Answered by Priti Patel
The Government classifies environmental taxes as those that meet all of the following three principles:
The tax is explicitly linked to the Government’s environmental objectives
The primary objective of the tax is to encourage environmentally positive behaviour change
The tax is structured in relation to environmental objectives
Based on these principles, the Government has defined the environmental taxes as the Climate Change Levy, the Aggregates Levy, Landfill Tax, the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme, and the Carbon Price Floor.
In May 2010, this Government committed to increasing the proportion of tax revenue accounted for by environmental taxes. The forecast from Budget 2014 demonstrates that the Government remains on track to achieve this commitment, as shown in the table below:
2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | |
Revenue from Environmental Taxes | £2.5bn | £3.0bn | £3.0bn | £3.8bn | £4.7bn | £5.1bn |
Total Tax Forecast Receipts | £555.7bn | £577.5bn | £593.5bn | £619.8bn | £648.2bn | £675.5bn |
Proportion of total tax receipts | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.6% | 0.7% | 0.8% |
Many of the policies aimed at supporting renewables and reducing the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions are funded by consumers, with neutral cost to the Exchequer. Detail on spend which is funded by the Exchequer in these areas, including the Renewable Heat Incentive, is published in the Department for Energy and Climate Change’s Annual Reports and Accounts.
Asked by: Dominic Raab (Conservative - Esher and Walton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make it his policy to increase the income tax personal allowance to £13,500.
Answered by David Gauke
The Government announced at Autumn Statement 2014 that the Personal Allowance would be increased to £10,600 from April 2015. This will be legislated for in the 2015 Finance Bill.
Any changes to the Personal Allowance and income tax thresholds will be set out at future fiscal events