Asked by: Miriam Cates (Conservative - Penistone and Stocksbridge)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the number of (a) mothers and (b) fathers who are likely to return to the workplace following the Spring Budget 2023.
Answered by John Glen
HM Treasury does not prepare forecasts for the UK labour market, including assessments of the impact of the Budget, which are the responsibility of the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
The OBR judged that the overall impact of the policy package announced at Spring Budget 2023 is to increase the level of employment by around 0.3 per cent in 2027-28, this is equivalent to 110,000 individuals. This is the largest upward revision made to potential output as a result of government fiscal policy decisions in any of the OBR’s forecasts since 2010.
Further details can be found in the OBR’s latest Economic and Fiscal Outlook, published in March 2023: https://obr.uk/efo/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-march-2023/
Asked by: Miriam Cates (Conservative - Penistone and Stocksbridge)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of allowing the full or partial value of the free childcare hours entitlement to be paid to informal childcare providers such as grandparents.
Answered by John Glen
The government is committed to supporting the early years sector and, at Spring Budget, announced an extra £4.4 billion of investment by 27-28 for the free hours offers in England. Through this package, the government will be more than doubling its spend on free childcare hours.
Local authorities are required by legislation to deliver free early education entitlements places through providers registered on the Ofsted Early Years Register. This can include nurseries, childminders (including those registered with a childminder agency) and schools which take children aged two and over and which are therefore exempt from registration with Ofsted as early years providers.
The government recognises that relatives do an incredibly important job in a child’s upbringing and can also help families meet their childcare needs. However, to ensure quality early education, free childcare entitlements cannot be used to pay family members to look after children.
Asked by: Miriam Cates (Conservative - Penistone and Stocksbridge)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate his Department has made of the potential cost of extending the VAT Retail Export Scheme to countries in the EU from 1 January 2021.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - Leader of HM Official Opposition
The Government has announced that the VAT Retail Export Scheme (RES) will not be extended to EU visitors, and will be withdrawn for all non-EU visitors, following the end of the transition period. However, retailers will continue to be able to offer VAT-free shopping to non-EU visitors who purchase items in store and have them sent direct to their overseas addresses and this will be available to EU visitors following the end of the transition period.
In 2019 HMRC estimate that VAT RES refunds cost around £0.5billion in VAT for around 1.2million non-EU visitors. HMRC also estimate that fewer than one in ten non-EU visitors use the VAT RES.
In 2019 the ONS estimate there were substantially more EU visitors (24.8 million) than non-EU passengers (16.0 million) to the UK. This implies an extension to EU residents would significantly increase the cost by up to an estimated £0.9billion. This would result in a large amount of deadweight loss by subsidising spending from EU visitors which already happens without a refund mechanism in place, potentially taking the total cost up to around £1.4billion per annum.
The final costing will be subject to scrutiny by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility and will be set out at the next forecast.