Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of report by the Asset Management Taskforce’s entitled Investing with Purpose: placing stewardship at the heart of sustainable growth, published in November 2020.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The UK is a world leader in stewardship standards and the report produced by the Economic Secretary’s Asset Management Taskforce, Investing with Purpose, builds on that existing leadership.
The report endorses the Financial Reporting Council’s internationally respected UK Stewardship Code as best in class, and recommends to UK government, regulators and industry how to further embed and improve stewardship standards and the consideration of environmental, social and governance factors.
The UK Government has already taken actions which speak to recommendations made in the report. In November 2020, the Chancellor announced the UK’s intention to make disclosures aligned with the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) fully mandatory in the UK across the economy by 2025, with a significant portion of mandatory requirements in place by 2023. The UK has also taken on board the recommendation to support international efforts to enhance and harmonise sustainability reporting standards, playing an instrumental role in securing important G7 commitments to move towards making climate disclosures mandatory across G7 economies.
The clear recommendations in the report apply across the investment chain and will continue to further enhance the UK’s stewardship regime, ensuring that asset managers are focused on delivering long-term, sustainable benefits for investors, the economy, the environment and society.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department plans to provide support for self-employed individuals who were not aware that late filing of 2019-20 tax returns would obstruct their access to the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme.
Answered by Jesse Norman
At the Budget on 3 March, the Government announced the details of two further rounds of the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS). Alongside this, the Government announced that HMRC will now use 2019-20 tax returns to determine the eligibility and award for the SEISS, provided these returns were submitted by 2 March.
This means that hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom became self-employed in 2019-20, may now be able to claim the fourth and fifth grants.
The Government has already given self-employed people more than a month after the statutory deadline to submit their returns. HMRC waived late filing penalties until 28 February. Self-employed individuals who did not file by 31 January will, where possible, have received a notification from HMRC that their return was late.
Allowing returns submitted after the terms and criteria of the SEISS grants were announced on 3 March would have created a significant incentive for fraud. The Government has a duty to protect the tax system from the small minority who would seek to exploit it. The 2 March cut-off point balances access for the vast majority of eligible self-employed individuals, with the Government’s duty to protect the taxpayer against fraud.
The SEISS continues to be just one element of a substantial package of support to the self-employed. The Government has also provided a wide range of loan schemes, business grants, business rates relief, tax cuts, mortgage holidays, increased welfare support, and the Kickstart and Restart schemes.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to his Budget 2021 statement on 3 March 2021, whether the support packages for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses extend to the events and exhibitions sector.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - President of the Board of Trade
The Government understands this is a difficult time for the events and exhibitions sector who have been acutely impacted by the pandemic.
From April business rate paying businesses in these sectors may be eligible for restart grants of up to £18,000 per business premises. Guidance for Local Authorities (LA) on the eligibility for these grants will be published shortly. In addition, the Government has announced LAs in England will receive a top-up worth a total of £425 million to their allocation from the Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG), which has already provided LAs with £1.6 billion. This funding is at the LAs discretion and is intended to support businesses which are not eligible for restart grants, but which are nonetheless experiencing a severe impact on their business.
The events and exhibitions sector will also benefit from the extension of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), the Self Employments Income Support Scheme (SEISS), the UK-wide Recovery Loan Scheme, and may also benefit from the £300m extension to the Culture Recovery Fund announced at Budget. This is in addition to the £1.57 billion provided in July 2020.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent estimate he has made of the amount of unspent (a) childcare vouchers and (b) money in tax-free childcare accounts.
Answered by Steve Barclay - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
We do not publish data on the amount of unspent childcare vouchers or money in Tax-Free Childcare accounts. Data on the number of unspent childcare vouchers would rest with each individual provider. However, I recognise that the number of parents with unspent childcare vouchers has increased as a result of the pandemic.
The Government is continuing to work with the childcare sector in order to understand how to best support them to ensure that safe, appropriate and affordable childcare is available for those returning to work now, and for all families who need it in the longer term.
Parents with Childcare Vouchers they do not need can seek to get a refund from their employer. However, whether the refund is possible depends on the contract between the voucher provider, employee and employer. Any amounts refunded would also be subject to the appropriate tax and NICs deductions.
Childcare Vouchers are now closed to new entrants. They have been replaced with Tax-Free Childcare (TFC). TFC is fairer as it makes access to childcare support available to more working families, including the self-employed and those working for employers who don’t offer vouchers. Lone parent households also receive the same support as those with more than one parent, unlike Childcare Vouchers where support is allocated per working parent. In addition, parents can withdraw the money they have paid in at any time, with the top-up going back to the Government.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what safeguards are in place to protect women from a higher job loss rate than men as a result of economic damage from the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - President of the Board of Trade
To help protect people’s jobs, the Government announced the unprecedented Coronavirus Job Retention, or “furlough”, Scheme (CJRS) to help firms keep millions of people in employment. In total, up to 31 October, almost 4.5 million female jobs had been supported through the scheme. The CJRS has been extended until the end of April.
Alongside this, the government has announced additional support for working parents. Any working parent usually eligible for Tax Free Childcare or 30 hours free childcare in receipt of support through the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme or Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme will temporarily remain eligible if they fall below the minimum income requirement due to COVID-19. This supports parents with childcare commitments who are temporarily working less as result of Covid-19.
In its Plan for Jobs, the Government has announced unprecedented support to help unemployed people in Great Britain find a job. We are providing £1.2bn this year to significantly expand and enhance work search support, including doubling the number of work coaches, additional investment into the Flexible Support Fund to provide direct support at a local level, and using externally contracted provision to expand support even further.
This Spending Review builds on this by providing £3.6 billion additional funding in 2021-22 for DWP to deliver employment support to those who need it most – from helping the recently unemployed to swiftly find new work, to offering greater support for people who will find that journey harder.
These measures will help provide job opportunities to women.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the measures announced in his summer economic update on the (a) UK's net zero emissions target and (b) Paris climate agreement; and whether he will make a statement.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - President of the Board of Trade
Our world-leading Green Book guidance provides a robust framework for assessing the impact of interventions on achieving our environmental goals.
As part of the Plan for Jobs, the Chancellor announced over £3 billion of new funding for green buildings, including a £2 billion Green Homes Grant scheme to upgrade people’s homes and £1 billion to improve the energy efficiency of public sector buildings.
This accelerates our progress towards net zero, saving the equivalent of up to 0.6 MtCO2e per year, which is roughly equivalent to taking up to 270,000 cars off the road.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will take steps to stop HMRC treating employer supplied covid-19 testing kits as employee benefits in kind; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The Government is introducing an income tax exemption and National Insurance (NICs) disregard to ensure that coronavirus antigen testing provided by an employer to employees outside the Government’s national testing scheme will not attract tax and NICs liabilities. The new exemption will apply across the United Kingdom for the current tax year 2020-21.