Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimates his Department has made of the revenue impact of expanding the scope of dormant assets scheme in the Dormant Assets Bill.
Answered by John Glen
HM Treasury and the Department for Digital, Media, Culture and Sport have worked extensively with industry stakeholders to estimate the potential impact of expanding the Dormant Assets Scheme. According to industry estimates, this expansion could result in a further £1.7bn of dormant assets being transferred into the Scheme. After a portion is reserved for any future reclaims, the Government estimates £880m will be available for distribution to initiatives across the UK. The Government’s consultation response, “Government response to the consultation on expanding the Dormant Assets Scheme” has further detail on the impact of Scheme expansion.
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 9 September 2019 to Question 284253 on Revenue and Customs: Equal Pay, when his Department plans to complete its 2019 Equal Pay Audit.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
Publication of HMRC’s next Equal Pay Audit was delayed from its originally scheduled publication date of 2019 while the department was working with trade unions last year to negotiate a set of reforms to its pay and working arrangements. The department took the decision to delay publication as this programme of work and the changes proposed to its pay system were likely to have a significant impact on the report’s results. Following agreement by HMRC union members of a final pay and contract offer put forward at a members’ ballot in January 2021, HMRC are now in the process of implementing these workforce reforms and HMRC expect to publish their next Equal Pay Audit before the end of 2021.
HMRC have continued to meet their statutory obligations under the Equality Act 2010 and in January 2021 also published equality objectives until 2024 that describe HMRC’s commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hmrc-equality-objectives-2020-to-2024. HMRC have embedded pay gap reduction actions into the work already being undertaken to review and improve policies and processes, and HMRC’s analyses show that they reduced their gender pay gap (ordinary and bonus) from 2019 to 2020. HMRC continue to take an evidence-based approach, using quantitative and qualitative insight to inform action taken.
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what information his Department holds on the Average Working Days Lost for civil servants working in the Debt Management directorate of HMRC in (a) 2018, (b) 2019 and (c) 2020.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
This directorate report is based on the most recent organisational structure. The average working days lost for civil servants working in Debt Management was as follows:
April 2019 – March 2020 = 8.77 days average
April 2018 – March 2019 = 8.69 days average
April 2017 – March 2018 = 7.58 days average
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what information his Department holds on the Average Working Days Lost for civil servants working in the Benefits and Credits directorate of HMRC in (a) 2018, (b) 2019 and (c) 2020.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
This directorate report is based on the most recent organisational structure. The average working days lost for civil servants working in Benefits and Credits was as follows:
April 2019 – March 2020 = 10.62 days average
April 2018 – March 2019 = 8.15 days average
April 2017 – March 2018 = 8.19 days average
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what information his Department holds on the Average Working Days Lost for civil servants working in the Personal Tax Operations directorate of HMRC in (a) 2018, (b) 2019 and (c) 2020.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
This directorate report is based on the most recent organisational structure. The average working days lost for civil servants working in Personal Tax Operations was as follows:
April 2019 – March 2020 = 8.90 days average
April 2018 – March 2019 = 8.68 days average
April 2017 – March 2018 = 8.13 days average
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what information his Department holds on the Average Working Days Lost for civil servants working in the Campaigns and Projects directorate of HMRC in (a) 2018, (b) 2019 and (c) 2020.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
Campaigns and Projects is a sub-directorate within Individuals and Small Business Compliance (ISBC) directorate; HMRC are unable to break down data further than directorate level. This directorate report is based on the most recent organisational structure for ISBC. The average working days lost for civil servants working in ISBC was as follows:
April 2019 – March 2020 = 7.34 days average
April 2018 – March 2019 = 6.53 days average
April 2017 – March 2018 = 7.11 days average
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what information his Department holds on the Average Working Days Lost for civil servants working in the Customer Service Group of HMRC in (a) 2018, (b) 2019 and (c) 2020.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
This report is based on the most recent organisational structure. Customer Service Group (CSG) is a collective of individual directorates.
Customer Service Group |
Benefits & Credits Delivery |
Business Tax & Customs |
CS Director General |
CSG Transformation |
Debt Management |
Finance Planning & Performance |
Operational Excellence & Output Mgmt |
PT Operations |
Surge & ODP |
The average working days lost for civil servants working in CSG was as follows:
April 2019 – March 2020 = 8.90 days average
April 2018 – March 2019 = 8.68 days average
April 2017 – March 2018 = 8.13 days average
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what information his Department holds on the Average Working Days Lost for civil servants working in the Business Tax and Customs directorate of HMRC in (a) 2018, (b) 2019 and (c) 2020.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
This directorate report is based on the most recent organisational structure. The average working days lost for civil servants working in Business Tax and Customs was as follows:
April 2019 – March 2020 = 9.84 days average
April 2018 – March 2019 = 8.30 days average
April 2017 – March 2018 = 8.17 days average
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent meetings Ministers of his Department has had with the (a) Financial Conduct Authority and (b) Bank of England on recent trends in the level of personal debt.
Answered by John Glen
The Government engages regularly with the Bank of England, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) to monitor personal finances, including levels of consumer debt.MaPS monitor financial difficulty through an annual survey of 22,000 people. The FCA conduct a biennial Financial Lives Survey, which provides a comprehensive insight into the finances of 16,000 adults. Both surveys will be published in early 2021.
The Bank of England publish monthly statistics on money and credit and the FCA is undertaking further research to understand how the impacts of COVID-19 are evolving.
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will allow directors of small companies who file their PAYE RTI returns annually between 20 March and 19 April 2020 who were ineligible for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme to claim backdated payment.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
For claims from 1 November, employers must have made a PAYE Real Time Information (RTI) submission to HMRC between 20 March 2020 and 30 October 2020 notifying a payment of earnings for that employee to be able to claim under the CJRS. This does mean that some annually paid employees such as directors, who were not paid between these dates will not be eligible for CJRS.
The Government has balanced a number of risks by aligning the start of the eligibility period for the CJRS extension with the cut-off date for the original scheme, meaning anyone who has been furloughed previously and paid in line with the rules of the scheme can be furloughed again.
This ensures that individuals paid annually towards and following the end of the previous tax year who were not eligible for the original scheme can now benefit from the extension. Those paid annually are eligible to claim, as long as they meet the relevant conditions.