Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will publish the communication between (a) himself and his Department, (b) the Prime Minister and (c) the Prime Minister’s Office on the changes to the Statutory Residence Test announced on 9 April 2020.

At the start of the pandemic, HMT and HMRC received a large number of requests for easements, all of which were considered, resulting in more than 80 COVID-19 related easements and exemptions being introduced to support businesses and individuals since March 2020, with many of these still in place.

The Government took a principled approach to changing the rules for the Statutory Residence Test so that any individual within certain critical sectors working on COVID-19 related activity would have benefited from the exemption.

For further details, please see the statement published by the Prime Minister’s office on 23 April:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/information-relating-to-the-ventilator-challenge-and-the-statutory-residence-test