Asked by: John Glen (Conservative - Salisbury)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of her policy on tackling non-compliance in the umbrella company market on (a) freelancers and (b) temporary workers seeking to evidence a stable income for mortgage applications.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises the positive role that compliant and well-managed umbrella companies can play in the functioning of the temporary labour market. However, non-compliance in the umbrella company market is widespread and costs taxpayers billions of pounds a year.
HMRC analysis shows that at least 275,000 workers, and likely significantly more, were engaged at some point in 2022 to 2023 by umbrella companies that were involved in tax avoidance, evasion or fraud. In the same year around £500 million was lost to disguised remuneration tax avoidance schemes, almost all of which was facilitated by umbrella companies. Hundreds of millions more was lost to so called ‘mini umbrella company’ fraud and other fraudulent attacks by people abusing umbrella company structures.
The Government is committed to closing the tax gap and making the tax system fairer by ensuring temporary workers are protected from large, unexpected tax bills caused by unscrupulous behaviour from non-compliant umbrella companies. That is why the Chancellor announced in her Autumn Budget that the Government will introduce legislation to make recruitment agencies using umbrella companies legally responsible for accounting for PAYE on workers’ pay.
The Government set out the expected Exchequer impacts of this measure at the Budget. The Government will publish a full Tax Impact and Information Note later this year.
Asked by: John Glen (Conservative - Salisbury)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of her policies on tackling non-compliance in the umbrella company market on the level of pension contributions made by affected people.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises the positive role that compliant and well-managed umbrella companies can play in the functioning of the temporary labour market. However, non-compliance in the umbrella company market is widespread and costs taxpayers billions of pounds a year.
HMRC analysis shows that at least 275,000 workers, and likely significantly more, were engaged at some point in 2022 to 2023 by umbrella companies that were involved in tax avoidance, evasion or fraud. In the same year around £500 million was lost to disguised remuneration tax avoidance schemes, almost all of which was facilitated by umbrella companies. Hundreds of millions more was lost to so called ‘mini umbrella company’ fraud and other fraudulent attacks by people abusing umbrella company structures.
The Government is committed to closing the tax gap and making the tax system fairer by ensuring temporary workers are protected from large, unexpected tax bills caused by unscrupulous behaviour from non-compliant umbrella companies. That is why the Chancellor announced in her Autumn Budget that the Government will introduce legislation to make recruitment agencies using umbrella companies legally responsible for accounting for PAYE on workers’ pay.
The Government set out the expected Exchequer impacts of this measure at the Budget. The Government will publish a full Tax Impact and Information Note later this year.
Asked by: John Glen (Conservative - Salisbury)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to paragraph 2.19 of the Autumn Budget 2024, whether she plans to provide additional funding for tackling non-compliant umbrella companies.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises the positive role that compliant and well-managed umbrella companies can play in the functioning of the temporary labour market. However, non-compliance in the umbrella company market is widespread and costs taxpayers billions of pounds a year.
HMRC analysis shows that at least 275,000 workers, and likely significantly more, were engaged at some point in 2022 to 2023 by umbrella companies that were involved in tax avoidance, evasion or fraud. In the same year around £500 million was lost to disguised remuneration tax avoidance schemes, almost all of which was facilitated by umbrella companies. Hundreds of millions more was lost to so called ‘mini umbrella company’ fraud and other fraudulent attacks by people abusing umbrella company structures.
The Government is committed to closing the tax gap and making the tax system fairer by ensuring temporary workers are protected from large, unexpected tax bills caused by unscrupulous behaviour from non-compliant umbrella companies. That is why the Chancellor announced in her Autumn Budget that the Government will introduce legislation to make recruitment agencies using umbrella companies legally responsible for accounting for PAYE on workers’ pay.
The Government set out the expected Exchequer impacts of this measure at the Budget. The Government will publish a full Tax Impact and Information Note later this year.
Asked by: John Glen (Conservative - Salisbury)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will make an estimate of the potential impact of her policy on tackling non-compliance in the umbrella company market on revenues to the Exchequer.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises the positive role that compliant and well-managed umbrella companies can play in the functioning of the temporary labour market. However, non-compliance in the umbrella company market is widespread and costs taxpayers billions of pounds a year.
HMRC analysis shows that at least 275,000 workers, and likely significantly more, were engaged at some point in 2022 to 2023 by umbrella companies that were involved in tax avoidance, evasion or fraud. In the same year around £500 million was lost to disguised remuneration tax avoidance schemes, almost all of which was facilitated by umbrella companies. Hundreds of millions more was lost to so called ‘mini umbrella company’ fraud and other fraudulent attacks by people abusing umbrella company structures.
The Government is committed to closing the tax gap and making the tax system fairer by ensuring temporary workers are protected from large, unexpected tax bills caused by unscrupulous behaviour from non-compliant umbrella companies. That is why the Chancellor announced in her Autumn Budget that the Government will introduce legislation to make recruitment agencies using umbrella companies legally responsible for accounting for PAYE on workers’ pay.
The Government set out the expected Exchequer impacts of this measure at the Budget. The Government will publish a full Tax Impact and Information Note later this year.
Asked by: John Glen (Conservative - Salisbury)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of the report by the FCSA entitled Regulating the UK’s umbrella market - FCSA’s response to proposals in Budget 2024, published on 11 March 2025.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises the positive role that compliant and well-managed umbrella companies can play in the functioning of the temporary labour market. However, non-compliance in the umbrella company market is widespread and costs taxpayers billions of pounds a year.
HMRC analysis shows that at least 275,000 workers, and likely significantly more, were engaged at some point in 2022 to 2023 by umbrella companies that were involved in tax avoidance, evasion or fraud. In the same year around £500 million was lost to disguised remuneration tax avoidance schemes, almost all of which was facilitated by umbrella companies. Hundreds of millions more was lost to so called ‘mini umbrella company’ fraud and other fraudulent attacks by people abusing umbrella company structures.
The Government is committed to closing the tax gap and making the tax system fairer by ensuring temporary workers are protected from large, unexpected tax bills caused by unscrupulous behaviour from non-compliant umbrella companies. That is why the Chancellor announced in her Autumn Budget that the Government will introduce legislation to make recruitment agencies using umbrella companies legally responsible for accounting for PAYE on workers’ pay.
The Government set out the expected Exchequer impacts of this measure at the Budget. The Government will publish a full Tax Impact and Information Note later this year.
Asked by: John Glen (Conservative - Salisbury)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of her policies on tackling non-compliance in the umbrella company market on the number of joint employment models.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises the positive role that compliant and well-managed umbrella companies can play in the functioning of the temporary labour market. However, non-compliance in the umbrella company market is widespread and costs taxpayers billions of pounds a year.
HMRC analysis shows that at least 275,000 workers, and likely significantly more, were engaged at some point in 2022 to 2023 by umbrella companies that were involved in tax avoidance, evasion or fraud. In the same year around £500 million was lost to disguised remuneration tax avoidance schemes, almost all of which was facilitated by umbrella companies. Hundreds of millions more was lost to so called ‘mini umbrella company’ fraud and other fraudulent attacks by people abusing umbrella company structures.
The Government is committed to closing the tax gap and making the tax system fairer by ensuring temporary workers are protected from large, unexpected tax bills caused by unscrupulous behaviour from non-compliant umbrella companies. That is why the Chancellor announced in her Autumn Budget that the Government will introduce legislation to make recruitment agencies using umbrella companies legally responsible for accounting for PAYE on workers’ pay.
The Government set out the expected Exchequer impacts of this measure at the Budget. The Government will publish a full Tax Impact and Information Note later this year.
Asked by: John Glen (Conservative - Salisbury)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether she made an assessment of the potential merits of undertaking an impact assessment of her policies on tackling non-compliance in the umbrella company market.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises the positive role that compliant and well-managed umbrella companies can play in the functioning of the temporary labour market. However, non-compliance in the umbrella company market is widespread and costs taxpayers billions of pounds a year.
HMRC analysis shows that at least 275,000 workers, and likely significantly more, were engaged at some point in 2022 to 2023 by umbrella companies that were involved in tax avoidance, evasion or fraud. In the same year around £500 million was lost to disguised remuneration tax avoidance schemes, almost all of which was facilitated by umbrella companies. Hundreds of millions more was lost to so called ‘mini umbrella company’ fraud and other fraudulent attacks by people abusing umbrella company structures.
The Government is committed to closing the tax gap and making the tax system fairer by ensuring temporary workers are protected from large, unexpected tax bills caused by unscrupulous behaviour from non-compliant umbrella companies. That is why the Chancellor announced in her Autumn Budget that the Government will introduce legislation to make recruitment agencies using umbrella companies legally responsible for accounting for PAYE on workers’ pay.
The Government set out the expected Exchequer impacts of this measure at the Budget. The Government will publish a full Tax Impact and Information Note later this year.
Asked by: John Glen (Conservative - Salisbury)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of her policies on tackling non-compliance in the umbrella company market on the labour supply chain.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises the positive role that compliant and well-managed umbrella companies can play in the functioning of the temporary labour market. However, non-compliance in the umbrella company market is widespread and costs taxpayers billions of pounds a year.
HMRC analysis shows that at least 275,000 workers, and likely significantly more, were engaged at some point in 2022 to 2023 by umbrella companies that were involved in tax avoidance, evasion or fraud. In the same year around £500 million was lost to disguised remuneration tax avoidance schemes, almost all of which was facilitated by umbrella companies. Hundreds of millions more was lost to so called ‘mini umbrella company’ fraud and other fraudulent attacks by people abusing umbrella company structures.
The Government is committed to closing the tax gap and making the tax system fairer by ensuring temporary workers are protected from large, unexpected tax bills caused by unscrupulous behaviour from non-compliant umbrella companies. That is why the Chancellor announced in her Autumn Budget that the Government will introduce legislation to make recruitment agencies using umbrella companies legally responsible for accounting for PAYE on workers’ pay.
The Government set out the expected Exchequer impacts of this measure at the Budget. The Government will publish a full Tax Impact and Information Note later this year.
Asked by: John Glen (Conservative - Salisbury)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the cost to the public purse is of the 2024-25 Civil Service pay award broken down by (a) gross pay and (b) employer pension contributions.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Pay Remit Guidance is a framework within which all organisations under its scope set pay. The 2024/2025 Pay Remit Guidance was published in July 2024 and departments are able to make average pay awards up to 5%.
Under pay delegation, individual departments set their own wage scales and are responsible for publishing their own figures on pay and employer pension contributions as part of either their annual accounts, and / or the monthly workforce management information transparency figures.
Asked by: John Glen (Conservative - Salisbury)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the UK Government Green Financing Framework, published in June 2021, whether it remains her Department's policy that funding should not be provided for the development of green technologies in the defence industry.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The principles of the Green Financing Programme are set out in the Green Financing Framework, published in June 2021. The Framework explains how proceeds from green gilts and NS&I’s retail Green Savings Bonds will finance green expenditures to help tackle climate change, biodiversity loss, and other environmental challenges, while creating green jobs across the UK. It also includes guidelines on the types of expenditures that can be included in the Programme.
The previous Government decided to exclude financing weapons in its Green Financing Framework, alongside other named exclusions. The international convention is to exclude weapons for green bond frameworks. In line with other sovereign green bond issuers and international best practices, the UK Government Green Financing Framework was designed to align with the International Capital Markets Association (ICMA) Green Bond Principles. This approach enables the UK’s green gilts to be accessible to the greatest possible pool of investors, improving value-for-money.
Green gilts and Green Savings Bonds finance public expenditures that can demonstrate a direct and positive environmental impact. Eligible expenditures are drawn from departments’ confirmed settlements in the Spending Review and assessed on the basis of their contribution to the Government’s climate and environmental objectives.
The Green Financing Framework does not underpin how Government expenditure decisions are made. As the PM has announced to Parliament on Tuesday 25 February, we will reach 2.5% of GDP expenditure on defence in 27-28.