Oral Answers to Questions

Heather Wheeler Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Huddleston]

My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that I will not only listen to the industry, but I met Heathrow just last week to hear its representations. The challenge is the way that modelling, and forecast and behavioural changes can be confidently assessed. Government estimates suggest that a worldwide scheme could cost as much as £2.5 billion. The challenge is the so-called deadweight cost that could happen by subsidising spending that otherwise would exist anyway, versus the incremental benefit that we could get from new visitors coming to the UK. Of course that is a behavioural change based on a tax change. It is based on a variety of assumptions, and therefore the modelling and assumptions underlying it vary, but I am listening to all representations.

[Mrs Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

16. What assessment he has made of the impact of raising the high income child benefit charge threshold on household incomes.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Nigel Huddleston)]

The high income child benefit charge threshold was raised to £60,000 on 6 April 2024. The point at which child benefit is fully withdrawn was also increased to £80,000, and the Government estimate that that will take 170,000 families out of paying the charge in 2024-25. The Government also plan to administer HICBC on a household rather than an individual basis by April 2026.

[Mrs Wheeler]

I have been contacted by many South Derbyshire parents who are caught in this unfair situation. Can the Minister be even more precise about the savings that this will now mean for my affected constituents?