Asked by: Richard Fuller (Conservative - North Bedfordshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing structural changes to efficiency oversight as part of the 2025 Spending Review.
Answered by Darren Jones - Minister for Intergovernmental Relations
This government is committed to spending taxpayers’ money efficiently. At the first phase of the Spending Review for 2025-26 it set a 2% target for efficiency, productivity and savings for all departments.
Phase 2 of the Spending Review (2026-2029) goes further with departments undertaking a line-by-line review of existing day-to-day budgets for the first time in 17 years. Departments are expected to identify a minimum of 5% savings and efficiencies against their current budgets freeing up funding to achieve the government’s priorities.
The Office for Value for Money is also advising the Chancellor and me on decisions for the Spending Review, which will include conducting an assessment of where and how to root out waste and inefficiency.
The government will set out its plans on efficiencies at the conclusion of the Spending Review.
Asked by: Richard Fuller (Conservative - North Bedfordshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of (a) inheritance tax payments on Defined Contribution pensions and (b) the loss of the Residence Nil Rate Band on marginal tax rates.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Government considers inheritance tax policy carefully and has due regard to several factors, including marginal inheritance tax rates.
Asked by: Richard Fuller (Conservative - North Bedfordshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the report by the NAO entitled The Administrative Cost of the Tax system, published on 10 February 2025, what steps she plans to take to reduce the annual cost to VAT registered traders.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
HMRC have acknowledged the findings of the NAO report and emphasised the ongoing efforts to modernise and streamline tax administration. An HMRC Transformation Roadmap will be published in 2025. This will set out HMRC’s vision to be a digital first organisation and outline our plans to extend digital services and tools to provide better customer service for customers, including small businesses, and agents.
Asked by: Richard Fuller (Conservative - North Bedfordshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to page 4 of the report by the NAO entitled The Administrative Cost of the Tax System, published on 10 February 2025, if she will instruct HMRC to update its £15.4bn estimate of the cost to businesses of complying with the tax system.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The £15.4bn estimate of the cost to businesses of complying with the tax system contains in the NAO report comes from HMRC’s Standard Cost Model (SCM). This uses an internationally recognised approach to estimating these costs.
The SCM contains data on approximately 2,500 obligations across 27 policy areas, and is largely based on data collected from businesses and agents on the time and costs of complying with regulations.
HMRC is looking to reduce the complexity of the model so it is easier to update which may enable it to produce a more timely estimate of the cost to business.
Asked by: Richard Fuller (Conservative - North Bedfordshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will publish the sources of funding for each public sector pension scheme including balancing payments made by her Department for each fiscal year between 2020-21 and 2023-24.
Answered by Darren Jones - Minister for Intergovernmental Relations
Figures showing the net Exchequer balancing payments for unfunded Public Service Pension Schemes (PSPS), along with details on contribution income and scheme expenditure, are regularly published as part of the OBR’s Economic and Fiscal Outlook (EFO), including outturn figures for the previous fiscal year. For example, the March 2022 EFO includes Exchequer balancing figures for each major PSPS for 2020-21 in the table labelled “March 2022 Economic and fiscal outlook – supplementary fiscal tables: expenditure”: Economic and fiscal outlook - March 2022 - Office for Budget Responsibility The latest publication is included in the October 2024 EFO.
Asked by: Richard Fuller (Conservative - North Bedfordshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to her Department's policy paper entitled Summary of reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief, published on 30 October 2024, whether the £1 million threshold for the two reliefs will be uprated over this Parliament by inflation.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The allowance will be £1 million from 6 April 2026. Decisions about future increases will be taken in the same way as for other inheritance tax reliefs.
Asked by: Richard Fuller (Conservative - North Bedfordshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to her Department's policy paper entitled Summary of reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief published on 30 October 2024, how many estates she expects to be affected from the combined reforms to the two reliefs on which the £495 million estimate in revenue is derived in 2027-28.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
2021-22 is the latest available year for outturn statistics on APR and BPR claims. Further details around the timing of data releases for statistics around Inheritance Tax liabilities can be found in the ‘timeliness and punctuality’ section of the statistics’ Background Quality Report at:
The Government published information about the reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief at www.gov.uk/government/publications/agricultural-property-relief-and-business-property-relief-reforms.
It is expected that up to around 2,000 estates will be affected by the changes to APR and BPR. Up to around 520 of these are expected to relate to claims for APR (including those that also claim for BPR), and this number falls to around 430 when claims that include AIM shares are excluded. Almost three-quarters of estates claiming agricultural property relief (or those claiming agricultural property relief and business property relief together) each year are expected to be unaffected by these reforms.
Asked by: Richard Fuller (Conservative - North Bedfordshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to her Department's policy paper entitled Summary of reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief, published on 30 October 2024, what equivalent figures HMRC hold on claims for the two reliefs for years after the 2021-22 tax year.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
2021-22 is the latest available year for outturn statistics on APR and BPR claims. Further details around the timing of data releases for statistics around Inheritance Tax liabilities can be found in the ‘timeliness and punctuality’ section of the statistics’ Background Quality Report at:
The Government published information about the reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief at www.gov.uk/government/publications/agricultural-property-relief-and-business-property-relief-reforms.
It is expected that up to around 2,000 estates will be affected by the changes to APR and BPR. Up to around 520 of these are expected to relate to claims for APR (including those that also claim for BPR), and this number falls to around 430 when claims that include AIM shares are excluded. Almost three-quarters of estates claiming agricultural property relief (or those claiming agricultural property relief and business property relief together) each year are expected to be unaffected by these reforms.
Asked by: Richard Fuller (Conservative - North Bedfordshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the Government plans to impose VAT on private school fees for any part of the academic school year commencing in September 2024.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Government is committed to breaking down barriers to opportunity, ensuring every child has access to high-quality education, which is why we have made the tough decision to end tax breaks for private schools. This will raise revenue for essential public services, including investing in the state education system.
The Prime Minister has been clear that if a child has an Education, Health and Care Plan that requires them to attend a private school because their needs cannot be met in the state sector, they will not feel an impact from VAT being charged on fees. The Chancellor has also been clear that changes will not come into force until 2025.
Further details on this policy will be set out in due course. The Government engages with a wide range of stakeholders with an interest in Government policy, including VAT, as part of the policy development and implementation process as a matter of course.
Asked by: Richard Fuller (Conservative - North Bedfordshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for what reason kinship carers can only claim the lower rate of Child Benefit if they already have children for whom they claim Child Benefit; and if he will take steps to review this policy.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The higher rate of Child Benefit can only be paid for the eldest child. It is intended to help all families with children, acknowledging the impact on a family’s finances of the arrival of a child/children in the family. The arrival of a child for the first time may mean for instance that many parents have to give up work altogether or work reduced hours. When Child Benefit ends for the eldest child, the higher rate becomes payable for the next eldest child. The government keeps all policies under review in the usual way.
Financial support for kinship carers is paid at the discretion of the local authority and in accordance with their model for assessing support needs. There is no limit on the level of support, including financial support, that local authorities can provide. The local authority should have in place clear eligibility criteria in relation to the provision of support services.