Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether there are any plans to ensure that future funding formulas for the police take account of (a) seasonality and (b) rurality.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
This Government is committed to ensuring that policing has the resources it needs and the allocation of funding to police forces remains an important consideration.
The Chancellor has announced a real terms increase in police spending power over the next three years. As with previous years, decisions on police force funding allocations for 2026-27, including the police main grant, will be set out at the forthcoming police funding settlement.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the policy document entitled Motability Scheme: reforming tax reliefs’ policy, published on 26 November, if she will publish the calculations used for the conclusion that the proposed changes are not expected to have any macroeconomic impacts.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The information set out in the macroeconomic impacts section of all Tax Information and Impact Notes (TIINs) corresponds to the assessments contained in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) Economic and Fiscal Outlook. The OBR, as the Government's official forecaster, is responsible for judging the impact of policy decisions on its forecasts, including any underlying calculations.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether Transitional Relief for pubs only applies to the portion of increase directly attributable to Rateable Value change after the effect of new multipliers.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government is introducing permanently lower business rates multipliers for eligible retail, hospitality and leisure (RHL) properties. These new tax rates are worth nearly £900 million per year and will benefit over 750,000 properties. To sustainably fund these lower RHL multipliers, the Government is also introducing a higher rate on the top one per cent of most expensive properties.
To protect businesses from large bill increases at the 2026 revaluation the government has introduced a generous support package worth £4.3 billion over the next 3 years, including support to help ratepayers to transition to their new bill.
For properties losing their RHL relief, the caps apply to their current bill, including the 40% relief, before changes in other reliefs and local supplements.
This means that most properties seeing increases will see them capped at 15% or less next year, or £800 for the smallest.
Without this support, the pub sector as a whole would have faced a 45% increase in the total bills they pay next year. Because of the support the Government has put in place this falls to just 4%.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if her Department will convene a cross-government summit with key tech companies and trade unions to discuss the future impact of AI and ASI on jobs, the economy and society.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
We are starting to witness AI’s impact within the labour market: transforming the workplace, demanding new skills and augmenting old ones. But there is uncertainty over the future scale of AI’s impact on the labour market, particularly over the next few years. Given the recent rapid pace of AI development, government is planning against a range of plausible future outcomes and closely monitoring the data that will help track if we are heading towards any of these outcomes.
The Government routinely brings together departments, industry, academics, and trade unions to discuss AI’s impact on the labour market and wider economy—including DSIT‑hosted roundtables – to inform Government’s approach to policy and analysis.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department has taken to identify sectors of the economy in which AI should not replace human productivity or experience.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
We are starting to witness AI’s impact within the labour market: transforming the workplace, demanding new skills and augmenting old ones. But there is uncertainty over the future scale of AI’s impact on the labour market, particularly over the next few years. Given the recent rapid pace of AI development, government is planning against a range of plausible future outcomes and closely monitoring the data that will help track if we are heading towards any of these outcomes. This includes identifying the contexts in which AI will complement and augment human activity—helping people work more efficiently.
Furthermore, to ensure that AI benefits everyone, the UK is investing in responsible AI to boost productivity, improve public services, advance healthcare innovation, and drive economic growth. AI Growth Zones, and expanded compute will support workers and industry, ensuring AI adoption strengthens national renewal and broadens opportunity.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to create a cross-department, nation-wide AI strategy in the next 12 months.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government takes a coordinated, cross‑departmental approach to the opportunities and risks presented by AI. The UK‑commissioned AI Opportunities Action Plan sets out how we can harness AI to boost economic growth, improve public services and create new job opportunities, and our cross‑HMG response outlines the steps we are taking forward across the UK. My Department works closely with colleagues across Whitehall to ensure our approach remains aligned and responsive to developments.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether religious-based properties will be exempt from the new tax announced in the Budget on properties valued at £2 million and over.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The High Value Council Tax Surcharge (HVCTS) is a new charge on owners of residential property in England worth £2 million or more in 2026, taking effect in April 2028. Owners, not residents, will pay the surcharge. The government will consult on potential exemptions and reliefs in the spring.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether she is taking steps to ensure that people affected by interest rate hedging products are compensated.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises the impact that the historic mis‑selling of interest rate hedging products (IRHPs) has had on many SMEs, and we acknowledge the distress this caused.
Responsibility for regulating the sale of these products, and for ensuring appropriate redress, rests with the independent Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The FCA required the major banks to carry out a comprehensive review of past IRHP sales. This led to around 14,000 businesses receiving a total of £2.2 billion in redress.
The Government believes this industry‑wide redress scheme broadly met its objectives in delivering compensation to businesses that were mis‑sold these products. The Government has always been clear that mis‑selling of financial products is completely unacceptable. That is why we supported both the FCA’s redress scheme and its decision to commission an independent ‘lessons‑learned’ review of its supervisory interventions in relation to IRHPs. The FCA accepted the majority of the recommendations from that review, and, in light of the review’s findings, it also carefully considered whether further steps should be taken to facilitate access to redress for customers who had initially been excluded.
More generally, the Government continues to keep the financial services regulatory framework under review, working closely with the FCA to help ensure that consumers and businesses are protected and have clear, effective routes to compensation where misconduct occurs.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she plans to publish a consultation on the VAT treatment of Motability scheme vehicles.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The government recognises the importance of engaging with tax payers on the development of tax policy, however, as set out in the tax policy making principles, the need to deliver change quickly means a consultation is not always practicable. Prior to announcing tax changes to the Motability Scheme at Budget 2025, the government instead engaged closely with the Motability Foundation to understand in depth how tax changes would impact the Motability Scheme and their customers. There are no plans for further consultation on the measure.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps his department is taking to prevent people from dying in fuel poverty.
Answered by Martin McCluskey - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Tackling fuel poverty is a priority for this Government. We will be publishing a new fuel poverty strategy for England to ensure that many more fuel poor households are protected by 2030, in parallel to the Warm Homes Plan.
In March the Government allocated around £1.8 billion to local authorities and social housing providers to support low-income households through the Warm Homes: Local Grant and Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund. This funding will support 170,000 households to get energy saving upgrades, helping families stay warm and cut bills.
In addition, the Chancellor has announced a further £1.5 billion to support upgrades for low-income households, benefiting those in fuel poverty. The details of this will be set out soon in the Warm Homes Plan.
Financial support is available to eligible low-income households across Great Britain through the Warm Home Discount which has been expanded for this winter increasing the total number of households that are estimated to receive the discount from 3.2 million to around 6 million.
DESNZ is working with other government departments to drive better availability and sharing of data to enable us in the future to more effectively target support to those who need help with their energy bills.