Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the awareness of small businesses of the change in eligibility for Employment Allowance announced in the Autumn Budget 2024.

Since announcement at Autumn Budget 2024, HMRC have undertaken a wide range of stakeholder engagement and employer communications through a variety of channels in advance of the significant increase to the Employment Allowance to £10,500 and removal of the threshold which prevented some larger employers from claiming. This includes webinars highlighting important changes for the new tax year for employers, and written articles in numerous editions of HMRC’s Employer Bulletin, Agent Update and Stakeholder Digest.

In addition, HMRC has a range of channels to raise awareness of changes in tax policy. These include communications issued directly to stakeholders or published on gov.uk, and engagement with stakeholders through established forums such as the Employment and Payroll Group, which the Federation of Small Businesses attend.