Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether pupils receiving dance and drama award funding will be exempt from increases in VAT in (a) this academic year and (b) subsequent financial years.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Performing arts schools that offer full-time education to children of compulsory school age and/or 16-19 year olds for a charge are in scope of the application of VAT to private school fees. This is to ensure fairness and consistency across all schools that provide education services and vocational training for a charge. It is the government’s position, therefore, that carving these schools out of the policy would be unfair to other private schools.
The Department for Education provides means-tested bursaries for eligible families as part of the Music and Dance Scheme (MDS) if their child has a place at any one of eight MDS performing arts private schools. For this academic year 2024/25, lower income families will receive additional support to ensure the total cost of their parental contributions do not rise from January 2025 as a result of the VAT change. This means that almost half of eligible families will be receiving further support in addition to the bursary already provided.
As part of the MDS, the Department also provides a grant to the Choir Schools Association (CSA) for their Choir Schools Scholarship Scheme. This scheme provides means-tested support to choristers attending CSA member schools. Whether member schools charge VAT from 1 January 2025 on their education fee will vary, depending on whether schools are private or state-funded.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether pupils enrolled on courses covered by the Music and Dance scheme will be exempt from VAT increases in the next financial year.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Performing arts schools that offer full-time education to children of compulsory school age and/or 16-19 year olds for a charge are in scope of the application of VAT to private school fees. This is to ensure fairness and consistency across all schools that provide education services and vocational training for a charge. It is the government’s position, therefore, that carving these schools out of the policy would be unfair to other private schools.
The Department for Education provides means-tested bursaries for eligible families as part of the Music and Dance Scheme (MDS) if their child has a place at any one of eight MDS performing arts private schools. For this academic year 2024/25, lower income families will receive additional support to ensure the total cost of their parental contributions do not rise from January 2025 as a result of the VAT change. This means that almost half of eligible families will be receiving further support in addition to the bursary already provided.
As part of the MDS, the Department also provides a grant to the Choir Schools Association (CSA) for their Choir Schools Scholarship Scheme. This scheme provides means-tested support to choristers attending CSA member schools. Whether member schools charge VAT from 1 January 2025 on their education fee will vary, depending on whether schools are private or state-funded.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether pupils on the choir schools scholarship scheme will be exempt from increases in VAT in (a) this academic year and (b) subsequent financial years.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Performing arts schools that offer full-time education to children of compulsory school age and/or 16-19 year olds for a charge are in scope of the application of VAT to private school fees. This is to ensure fairness and consistency across all schools that provide education services and vocational training for a charge. It is the government’s position, therefore, that carving these schools out of the policy would be unfair to other private schools.
The Department for Education provides means-tested bursaries for eligible families as part of the Music and Dance Scheme (MDS) if their child has a place at any one of eight MDS performing arts private schools. For this academic year 2024/25, lower income families will receive additional support to ensure the total cost of their parental contributions do not rise from January 2025 as a result of the VAT change. This means that almost half of eligible families will be receiving further support in addition to the bursary already provided.
As part of the MDS, the Department also provides a grant to the Choir Schools Association (CSA) for their Choir Schools Scholarship Scheme. This scheme provides means-tested support to choristers attending CSA member schools. Whether member schools charge VAT from 1 January 2025 on their education fee will vary, depending on whether schools are private or state-funded.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to paragraph 2.41 of the Autumn Budget, published on 24 October 2024, what estimate he has made of the potential cost to the public purse of the increase in the employment allowance in each year of the forecast period.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government has protected the smallest businesses from the impact of the increase to Employer National Insurance by increasing the Employment Allowance from £5,000 to £10,500, which means that 865,000 employers will pay no NICs at all next year, more than half of employers will see no change or will gain overall from this package, and all eligible employers will be able to employ up to four full-time workers on the National Living Wage and pay no employer NICs.
The estimated cost of the increase to the Employment Allowance is set out in the table below:
(£m) | 2025-26 | 2026-27 | 2027-28 | 2028-29 | 2029-30 |
Cost of increasing the Employment Allowance from £5,000 to £10,500 | 3,730 | 3,555 | 3,570 | 3,600 | 3,630 |
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the official statistics entitled Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2024, CP 1131, published on 30 July 2024, if she will publish by Department the data provided in Table 6.5.
Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Underlying data for table 6.5 will become available on 28 November when the Annual OSCAR Transparency Release is published on GOV.UK. As an alternative, economic category data based on departmental budgets (PESA table 2.1) are available from the “Public Spending Statistics (PSS) July 2024: database” webpage:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/public-spending-statistics-release-july-2024
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the cost of employer National Insurance Contributions was for (a) central Government, (b) local government and (c) the whole of government in each of the last five financial years; what estimate she has made of those costs for the (i) 2025-26 financial year and (ii) subsequent four financial years; and what proportion of the total public sector pay bill Employer National Insurance accounted for in each of last five financial years.
Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Treasury does not collect spending information on this basis. However, as set out in the Autumn Budget, the government has set aside funding to support the public sector with employer National Insurance Contributions. The amounts are £4.7bn in 2025-26, £4.7bn in 2026-27, £4.8bn in 2027-28, £4.9bn in 2028-29 and £5.1bn in 2029-30.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the note entitled Allowance for impact on public sector organisations in Table 5.1 on page 118 of Autumn Budget 2024, published on 30 October 2024, HC 295, if she will publish this information by Department.
Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Government will provide support for departments and other public sector employers for additional Employer National Insurance Contributions costs only. This funding will be allocated to departments, with the Barnett formula applying in the usual way.
This is in line with the approach taken under the previous Government’s Health and Social Care Levy.
The Government plans to update Parliament on allocations by department in the usual way as soon as possible.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether she plans to extend the scheme making church repairs exempt from VAT beyond March 2025.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer will soon set out the details of the government’s spending priorities for 25/26 in the usual way at the Spending Review on the 30 October.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much her Department spent on communications in the latest year for which data is available.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Expenditure on communications staffing was £2,507,000 and non-pay related items/services for the communications team was £869,000, In 2023-24.
HM Treasury’s Communications Team is responsible for all communications conducted by HM Treasury and its Ministers to help inform, promote and explain HMT policies through traditional and new media channels.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will exempt independent special schools from the removal of business rates charitable rates relief.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
On 29 July 2024, the Government published a technical note confirming that the Government will remove private schools’ eligibility for charitable rates relief under business rates in England.
The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government will bring forward primary legislation to amend the Local Government Finance Act 1988 to end relief eligibility for private schools. The change is intended to take effect from April 2025, subject to Parliamentary process.
As set out in the technical note, the Government recognises some pupils have special educational needs that can only be met in a private school. The Government has made clear that it will consider how to address the potential impact of these changes in cases where private school provision has been specified for pupils through an Education, Health and Care Plan