Local Authorities: Budgets
Lord Lansley Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, the Government are moving towards such steps—for example, through mayoral combined authorities and other areas where we are devolving both greater control of funding and powers to those areas to act. With that comes greater accountability.
Lord Lansley (Con)
Can my noble friend say whether the Government have received any proposals from His Majesty’s loyal Opposition on where additional funding for local government is to be provided from?
Baroness Penn (Con)
I have not received any such representations, but they have perhaps gone to the department for levelling up; I will ask it if it has ever received such representations from the Opposition Front Bench.
Theatre Tax Relief
Lord Lansley Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
The noble Lord is right that the theatre tax relief is not the only cultural tax relief that we have. The Covid support that was put in place to extend the levels of that relief cover those areas as well. I know that my noble friend Lord Parkinson has been listening very carefully to the representations made by that sector and passing them on to the Treasury.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend will be aware of the value in present circumstances of tax measures that can boost growth and enhance tax receipts. In that respect, will she and her Treasury colleagues look positively at representations from the video games industry on the extension of the video games tax relief, which is estimated to enhance growth to the extent that tax receipts would rise by more than £200 million a year?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, the Government keep all taxes and tax reliefs under review. My noble friend is right about the value that the video games industry brings to the UK. The Chancellor has identified our creative industries as a key driver to our future growth, which is what we have heard in the range of different questions from noble Lords today.