Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many agency staff were employed by her Department in each of the last five years.
Answered by Rachel Blake
Please see the table below for the number of agency staff at HM Treasury over the past five financial years. These figures represent year-end headcount, defined as the number of agency workers in post during March of each financial year.
Financial Year | Count of Agency Staff |
2025-26 | 15 |
2024-25 | 11 |
2023-24 | 11 |
2022-23 | 4 |
2021-22 | 7 |
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, other than special advisers if her Department has appointed anyone from outside the civil service since July 2024.
Answered by Rachel Blake
Candidates that have been successfully appointed to a public appointment (whether regulated or unregulated) are announced on the Public Appointments Service announcements page and HM Treasury News and Communications Page. Candidates that have been successfully appointed to a direct ministerial appointment are announced on the Direct Ministerial Appointments Announcement portal and HM Treasury News and Communications Page.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether her department uses numerical reasoning tests as part the recruitment process for its graduate recruitment scheme.
Answered by Rachel Blake
HM Treasury’s graduate entry programme was paused for the 2025–26 cycle so that the department could undertake a procurement exercise for a new provider to run a replacement programme for September 2027 entry. The numerical reasoning test was removed from the previous graduate process in 2020, in line with similar changes made to most Fast Stream recruitment. Decisions on the new assessment process, including whether numerical reasoning tests will be used, have not yet been taken
The department is committed to recruiting the brightest and best talent through a rigorous, merit-based process.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many political appointees have been made by her department since July 2024.
Answered by Rachel Blake
We have taken ‘political appointees’ to mean special advisers. A list of special advisers by department is published each year in the Annual Report on Special Advisers which is laid in parliament. The Annual Report on Special Advisers 2026 will be published in due course.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the potential compounded impact of (a) National Insurance contribution rises (b) business rate rises and (c) energy price rises on pubs in Lincolnshire.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with HM Treasury)
Recognising the value pubs bring and the challenges they face, on business rates the Government has introduced a 1-year 15 per cent relief for all pubs and live music venues in 2026/27, on top of the existing support package announced at Budget. This means around three quarters of pubs see their bills either falling or remaining the same in 2026/27.
For the following two years, their bills will then be frozen in real terms. As a sector, pubs will pay 8 per cent less in business rates in 2029 than they did in 2025/26.
The Government also recognises the pressure high energy costs place on businesses. The main reason why businesses’ energy costs remain high is because wholesale prices remain significantly higher than their historic levels, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Over the long term, shifting away from volatile fossil fuels towards clean, homegrown power will reduce exposure to global price shocks and deliver more stable, affordable electricity for businesses.
To support pubs, we have also announced that we are more than doubling the Hospitality Support Fund, with £10 million of funding over three years. This fund will aim to help hundreds of rural pubs to diversify their business models, improve efficiency and productivity in the sector; and support people who are furthest from the labour market to move into jobs in hospitality.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether her Department has hired external public relations consultants since July 2024.
Answered by Rachel Blake
HM Treasury has not procured any consultancy relating to public relations since July 2024.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if her Department permits civil servants employed in the UK to work from overseas on a regular basis.
Answered by Rachel Blake
HM Treasury employees may only request temporary overseas working for personal reasons in very limited circumstances. Such requests are considered on a case-by-case basis, fully taking account of operational requirements and risk.
Any approved arrangements are time‑limited, with employees able to work overseas for up to two weeks at a time and no more than four weeks in any rolling 12‑month period, and always subject to prior senior approval.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether her department permits (1) Ministers, (2) Special advisers and (3) officials to use (a) Chat GPT, (b) Google Gemini, (c) Claude, (d) Deepseek and (e) Grok as part of their official duties.
Answered by Rachel Blake
Ministers, special advisers, and officials in HM Treasury have access to HMT-GPT, our internal AI tool which is built on Claude and ChatGPT, and Copilot, which have been assured to the appropriate security standards and approved for official use.
The use of publicly available or consumer versions of generative AI tools, including those named in the Question, for official business is not permitted. Approved enterprise tools are configured so that departmental data is held securely and is not used to train publicly available AI models.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much her Department has spent on advertising on podcasts in each of the last three years.
Answered by Rachel Blake
The department has spent £0 on advertising on podcasts over the last three years.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent steps she has taken to help support people with the cost of living in South Holland and the Deepings constituency.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government is committed to improving living standards for everyone, in every part of the UK. Our strategy for improving living standards is through growing the economy, which is the only way to sustainably increase wages, and through tackling inflation, which erodes people's pay checks
Through action taken at Budget, the Government has eased cost of living pressures for households. From reducing energy bills and freezing rail fares and NHS prescription fees, to increasing the National Living Wage, extending the pensions Triple Lock and removing the two child limit in Universal Credit, the Government has consistently acted to put more money in people's pockets — with further commitments on free breakfast clubs and expanded free school meals ensuring families with children feel the difference too
The government has recently set out further action to continue easing cost of living pressures through a new package of temporary and targeted support. The Chancellor has announced a funded, time-limited Great British Summer Saving package supporting families and businesses with rising costs through a temporary cut in the rate of VAT on summer attractions and children’s meals in restaurants and cafes from 20% to 5% over the summer holidays, and free bus travel across England for children aged between 5 and 15 throughout August. The government has confirmed that there will be no rise to fuel duty this year, with targeted support for those most exposed, including farmers. We have also suspended tariffs on 125 product lines, reducing prices on staple goods, and provided targeted sectoral support including chemicals and ceramics.