Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to Article 103 of UK/EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement, what assessment he has made of the steps taken by the European Union to reduce the time and costs for (a) all businesses and (b) small and medium-sized enterprises since that agreement came into effect.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Government is committed to growing the UK’s economy by making the most of our Brexit freedoms to boost UK businesses, which is why the Government is aiming to cut £1 billion of red tape for UK businesses and ease regulatory burdens.
The Government has provided approximately £8.4 million to UK Businesses through the SME Brexit Support Fund. This has enabled over 4,100 businesses to pay for practical support to adjust to new customs and VAT rules when trading with the EU. All businesses can get answers to practical questions about exporting to Europe by accessing the Government’s Export Support Service via GOV.UK.
The UK/EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) provides for a range of customs cooperation between the UK and EU, including on simplifying and modernising our customs procedures, facilitating transit movements, and ensuring that traders are clear on how to move goods smoothly between our respective borders. UK officials across departments regularly meet traders to solicit feedback and, where businesses are facing customs barriers when exporting the EU, these are raised with EU counterparts under established channels.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many staff in his Department have been allocated to deal with issues related to international trade in (a) each of the past five years and (b) the next two years; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
HM Treasury is the government’s economic and finance ministry, maintaining control over public spending, setting the direction of the UK’s economic policy, and working to achieve strong and sustainable economic growth.
Free and fair trade is fundamental to the prosperity of the United Kingdom and the world economy, and HMT takes a flexible and dynamic approach to resourcing in order to meet this objective. As a result, there are a number of HMT officials, across groups, working on issues related to international trade matters, and total numbers of staff fluctuate within and across years.
The number of paid full time equivalent staff in the Treasury was as follows over the past 5 years.
Date | Number of HMT staff employed |
March 2022 | 2,045 |
March 2021 | 1,992 |
March 2020 | 1,599 |
March 2019 | 1,447 |
March 2018 | 1,328 |
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much and what proportion of goods exports were made by businesses with a headcount of (a) 250 or more, (b) between 50 and 249, (c) between 10 and 49 and (d) less than 10 employees in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
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, and download bulk datasets.
Data on UK exports by business characteristics, including number of employees, from 2013 to 2020 is available from the following webpage: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/uk-trade-in-goods-statistics-by-business-characteristics
This information is not available prior to 2013. The information for 2021 will be published in December 2022.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether HM Revenue and Customs is taking steps to prevent benefits payments made to a UK bank account from transfer into a Russian bank account.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
HMRC does not have jurisdiction over any onwards transfer of a benefit payment made to a UK bank account into a Russian bank account.
HMRC does not hold information on whether any benefits payments the Government has made in the last 12 months into a UK bank account have then been transferred into a Russian bank account.