Oral Answers to Questions

Teresa Pearce Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Let me repeat that the incapacity benefit reassessment process, which is just coming up to one year old, is running on time. We have some delays in the claims process for new claimants of employment and support allowance, which is resulting in people having to wait an average of five days longer to be assessed than was previously the case. That is too long. They are having to wait five days longer as a result of the changes implemented following Professor Harrington’s review, but we have a programme in place to enable us to catch up by the summer.

[Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

8. What estimate he has made of the cost to a typical small business of introducing real-time reporting of PAYE information.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

Real-time reporting of PAYE information aims to reduce administrative burdens for all employers, and builds on processes that are already in place. The current burden of PAYE falls disproportionately on small employers. We are building on existing processes, and the annual saving to all businesses is estimated at £300 million per year from 2014-15. The smallest employers—those employing nine people or fewer—will be given free software upgrades by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.

[Teresa Pearce]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. A recent HMRC consultation showed that 75% of people thought that the Government’s time scale for implementing real-time PAYE information was unachievable. All employers will have to move to the new system by October 2013 if universal credit is to succeed, yet some small businesses are still unaware of the time scale, and many are not computerised. What additional assistance will the Government provide to help such businesses to ensure that they meet the timetable?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

HMRC, which is now responsible for this measure, meets me and others in the Department regularly. We have embedded some DWP employees in the HMRC programme; they are locked together. They are, as I understand it, on time, and they are having constant discussions with large and small employers about the issues and the problems, and assessing what needs to be done to make this happen and to make all the changes. We must remember that all those firms collect those data anyway; the only question is how they report it back within the monthly cycle. We are on top of that but, obviously, we want to keep our eye on the matter.