Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps HMRC is taking to help reduce the risk of a (a) major IT failure and (b) security breach.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
HMRC continually upgrades IT systems as part of ongoing maintenance.
HMRC has 24/7 support operation in place with established processes for early identification of incidents and respond to these appropriately.
Customer data is subject to high levels of protection and HMRC takes data protection seriously.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of a windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas producers on the cost of living.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the challenges many are facing with pressures on household budgets. We are providing support worth over £20 billion across this financial year and next that will help families with the cost of living. This includes cutting the Universal Credit taper rate and increasing work allowances to make sure work pays, freezing alcohol and fuel duties to keep costs down, as well as the £9.1 billion package announced in February 2022 to help households with rising energy bills.
The Government places additional taxes on the extraction of oil and gas, with companies engaged in the production of oil and gas on the UK Continental Shelf subject to headline tax rates on their profits that are currently more than double those paid by other businesses. To date, the sector has paid more than £375 billion in production taxes.
All taxes are kept under review and any changes are considered and announced by the Chancellor.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make it his policy to support an extension of the Debt Service Suspension Initiative and cancelling debts with the aim of enabling countries to respond more effectively to climate change.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The UK has supported significant action on debt through the G20-Paris Club Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI). Preliminary estimates suggest the DSSI has suspended over $12.7 billion in debt service repayments due by the poorest countries in the world. In April 2021, the G20 and Paris Club endorsed a final extension of the DSSI to the end of 2021.
The DSSI was designed as a short-term initiative to tackle the immediate financing needs of eligible countries. To deliver a longer-term, more sustainable approach to dealing with debt vulnerabilities the UK, along with the G20, also agreed a new Common Framework for Debt Treatments beyond the DSSI, designed to provide more efficient, equitable and effective debt treatments. The UK is fully committed to implementing the Common Framework in coordination with our international partners. This will support those countries who request a debt treatment in returning to a more fiscally sustainable path and support their development goals, including responding to climate change.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent steps the Government has taken on spending £9.2 billion on energy efficiency measures over the course of the 2019 Parliament.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We have so far invested over £2.5bn to support both low-income households and public sector organisations to install energy efficiency measures, while also expanding the Energy Company Obligation to £1bn per year. This is significantly above the £1.28bn originally included in the 2019 manifesto covering the first two years of this Parliament.
The recent spending review committed further funding to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. This included £950 million for the Home Upgrade Grant, £800 million for the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund £1.4 billion to help decarbonise the public sector estate.
We are also introducting important non-spending policies to support the uptake of energy efficiency, as set out in the Heat and Building Strategy.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate his Department has made of the level of spending required in 2021-22 for the transition to achieve net zero.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Spending Review 2020 allocated funding for 2021/22, and the full settlement can be found: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spending-review-2020-documents. Spending Review 2021 is currently ongoing and is due to be published on the 27th October. This will include allocation of spending up to 2024/25.
At Spending Reviews, departments follow Green Book guidance to both understand the wider strategic context of their policies, including their contribution to Net Zero, and assess all costs and benefits of their bids, including climate and environmental impacts. At the Treasury we consider these impacts when we assess the value for money of different spending programmes and the benefits they would deliver.
At Spending Review 2020, we required departments to improve the information they provided about the impact on greenhouse gas emissions from their spending bids. We have written out to departments with our expectations to improve data collection on emissions for Spending Review 2021.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the support available to businesses in response to the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Steve Barclay - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Throughout the pandemic, the Government has sought to protect people’s jobs and livelihoods while also supporting businesses and public services across the UK.
We have put in place an economic package of support totalling £352 billion through the furlough and self-employed income support schemes, support for businesses through grants and loans, business rates and VAT relief.
At the Budget, the Chancellor extended this package of economic support to accommodate even the most cautious view about the time it might take to exit restrictions and to provide certainty and continuity to business. The Government continues to keep all impacts and policies under review.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will include a review of the police allocation formula in the Comprehensive Spending Review.
Answered by Steve Barclay - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Government is alive to the concerns held by many in the policing sector over the police funding formula, and Home Office Ministers have agreed that the current arrangements are out of date. We are considering the police funding formula as part of our long-term vision for policing. Our priority for the Spending Review is continuing to support police forces with the required resources to tackle crime. At the 2019 Spending Review the Government agreed a total police funding settlement of up to £15.2 billion in 2020/21, which is an increase of up to £1.1 billion compared to 2019/20 and the biggest increase in funding for the policing system since 2010.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to his oral statement of 4 September 2019 on Spending Round 2019, how much funding he plans to allocate to Homes England to deliver more homes where people need them; how many homes are planned to be built and what the location will be of those homes.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
In the latest spending round we have increased the resource funding available to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government for 2020/21 by 2.7% to deliver their priorities, including delivering the homes this country needs in the right places. As part of this settlement, MHCLG’s admin budget will increase from £258m in 2019/20 to £341m in 2020/21, within which funding for Homes England will also increase. This will enable them to continue delivering significant investment in housing, with at least £44bn of financial support committed at the Autumn Budget 2017 over a five-year period, and to support the Government’s overall ambition of 300,000 additional homes on average by the mid-2020s.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to his oral statement of 4 September 2019 entitled, Spending Round 2019, to what programmes will the £24 million additional funding for the Building Safety Programme to support the new building safety regime be allocated.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
The Spending Round confirmed that the Government will provide £24m of additional funding for the Building Safety Programme in 2020/21 to help prevent a tragedy like Grenfell happening again. The Government has announced that £10m of this funding will be available to support the Protection Board who will provide expert, tailored building checks and inspections, if necessary, on all high-risk residential buildings in England by 2021. The remaining funding will be used to support the new building safety regime.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to his oral statement of 4 September 2019 entitled, Spending Round 2019, what proportion of the £24 million additional funding for the Building Safety Programme to support the new building safety regime will be provided to (a) local authorities and (b) housing associations to support the data collection exercise on external wall systems in high rise buildings.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
The Spending Round confirmed that the Government will provide £24m of additional funding for the Building Safety Programme in 2020/21 to help prevent a tragedy like Grenfell happening again. Further to this, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government confirmed that an additional £4m of funding will be made available in 2019/20 to support LAs in the data collection exercise on external wall systems in high rise buildings.