Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department plans to take ensure to that people who reside in non-family households are not penalised if they move to other properties within the period when the energy bills rebate is recharged.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government understands there will be cases where changes in people’s circumstances mean they may not directly be the recipient of the reduction, but still see increases in future bills, or vice versa.
The Energy Bills Support Scheme, as announced by my rt. hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer on 3 February, is currently the subject of a government consultation issued on 11 April.
The implementation of the policy will be reviewed following the conclusion of the consultation.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, for what reason Maternity Action has been removed from his Department's Pregnancy and Maternity Discrimination Advisory Board.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Pregnancy and Maternity Discrimination Advisory Board’s purpose is to consider non-legislative improvements to reduce pregnancy and maternity discrimination in the workplace. It is a collaboration between Government, employer and family representative groups and the membership needs the right balance between those different groups in order for the Board to do its job.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to figures from the Electoral Commission released on 2 March 2022 recording the Conservative Party received £80,000 from Lubov Chernukhin in the last quarter, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of donations to political parties.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - President of the Board of Trade
UK electoral law already sets out a stringent regime of donations controls that bans foreign donations. Individuals must be on the UK electoral roll to make political donations; in the case of companies, they must be properly carrying on business in the UK. The Government is strengthening the corporate transparency regime to ensure this is the case.
Reportable donations are overseen by the Electoral Commission. If the Hon. Member has a query relating to its operational policy and guidance on permissible donations, she may wish to ask a question via the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission.
More broadly, I would make the following observation: there are people in this country of Russian origin who are British citizens. Many are critics of Putin and have condemned his invasion of Ukraine. It is completely wrong and discriminatory to tar them all with the same brush because of their family background or past nationality.
Asked by: James Murray (Labour (Co-op) - Ealing North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimates he has made of the costs to business of (a) the introduction of the Health and Social Care Levy from April 2023 and (b) the transitional increase to the main and additional rates of National Insurance contributions in 2022-23 arising from (i) familiarisation with the changes, (ii) updating software or systems, and (iii) updating employee payroll records.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The announcement of the National Insurance contributions (NICs) increase in the 2022-23 tax year and the introduction of the Health and Social Care levy (HSCL) from 2023-24 onwards will impact 1.6 million employers. Businesses will face one-off costs to familiarise themselves with the changes and to update employee payroll records. The impacts on businesses can be found in the HSCL Tax information and Impact Note which was published by HMRC: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-and-social-care-levy/health-and-social-care-levy.
Family Test assessments are not routinely published. Decisions on whether and how to publish complete Family Test assessments fall within the responsibility of each Government department.
The announcement of the NICs increase in the 2022-23 tax year and the introduction of the HSCL from 2023-24 onwards was made ahead of the announcement of annual changes that payroll software providers make each year. It is expected that these changes will form part of the annual change process for software developers.
An initial estimate of the cost for changes to HMRC’s IT systems and extra support staff was provided to Parliament by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury on 14 September 2021. The initial estimated cost was £40-50 million. A further estimate will be available in due course.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to increase capacity in (a) family courts and (b) employment tribunals.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
We continue to take action to tackle the impact the pandemic has had on our courts and tribunals system. We invested £250 million to support recovery in our courts in the last financial year (2020/21). This included £76 million to increase our capacity to hear cases in the family and civil courts, as well as in tribunals. The recent Spending Review has also provided £324 million over the next three years to improve waiting times in the civil and family courts, and tribunals.
In the family court, we sat to our highest ever level in 2020 – 54,830 days in public law and 71,832 days in private law. This is 9% higher than we sat in 2019 for public law and 5% higher than we sat in 2019 for private law.
We increased Cafcass’s budget by £13 million in 2021, so that they have more capacity and can manage the additional pressures caused by the pandemic. In addition, we have provided Cafcass with an additional £491,000 in 2021, to be spent in the areas of the country where their resources are most under pressure.
We are also managing demand in the family courts to ensure the capacity can be used most effectively. In March 2021, we launched a Family Mediation Voucher Scheme for those seeking to resolve private law matters relating to a child. Since its introduction, over 6,000 families have successfully used the scheme to access mediation and help resolve disputes outside of court. In January this year, we increased the overall funding for the scheme to just under £3.3 million.
In the employment tribunal, we increased the sitting day allocation from 30,000 in the 2020/21 financial year to 35,000 in the 2021/22 financial year. To ensure this capacity is used effectively, we established a joint ministerial taskforce last year with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, to reduce pressures on the tribunals and develop a joint plan for recovery. We have also established a virtual region of fee-paid judges able to hear remote cases from any region, which we expect to deliver more than 500 additional sitting days.
Across both jurisdictions, we have run ambitious recruitment campaigns to expand our judicial capacity and boost caseworker numbers.
We are also continuing to use remote hearings. This provides additional capacity to ensure cases that work well remotely can be heard quickly, while also freeing up space for cases that must be heard in-person. While it remains for the judge to decide whether a particular trial or hearing is suitable to be heard virtually, video hearings will continue to be a critical part of court and tribunal operations. For hearings that cannot be dealt with virtually, we have maximised the capacity of existing courtrooms by adjusting our estate to be Covid-secure.
Asked by: Imran Hussain (Labour - Bradford East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, for what reason there is not a target to raise the performance of secondary school children in the Levelling Up White Paper alongside the target for primary school children.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The missions set out in the Levelling Up White Paper are medium term and will be used to galvanise action across government, business and civil society. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities will work with the Department for Education and other government departments to ensure that the right policies are in place to contribute to achieving the missions.
The UK Government has continued to drive secondary school improvement, including by encouraging all schools in England to become part of a strong family of schools by joining a multi-academy trust. The 2021 Spending Review confirmed the Government’s commitment to level up education with an additional £4.7 billion by 2024-25 for the core schools budget in England, over and above the Spending Round 2019 (SR19) settlement for schools in 2022-23; and a new package of £1.8 billion over the SR21 period to support education recovery from the pandemic, which will nearly double the support per pupil in secondary schools.
The forthcoming Schools White Paper will set out a clear vision for further improvements to the schools system, to help raise the attainment of students including those attending secondary schools.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, when the Government last reviewed the recommendations of (a) the Equal Opportunities Commission’s 2006 report, Greater Expectations, on its investigation into discrimination against new and expectant mothers in the workplace and (b) subsequent reports by the Equality and Human Rights Commission on Pregnancy and Maternity Related Discrimination and Disadvantage in 2016.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Equal Opportunities Commission’s Greater Expectations report and subsequently EHRC’s work, which was based on research jointly commissioned with the then Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, made a number of recommendations to respond to the risk and impact of pregnancy and maternity discrimination in the workplace.
The Government has an active programme of work in this area. We have consulted and committed to introduce legislation to improve redundancy protections for pregnant women and new mothers. We will introduce this when Parliamentary time allows. We have also established a Pregnancy and Maternity Discrimination Advisory Board comprising business representatives, family groups and the TUC. The Board is considering the information and guidance on pregnancy and maternity discrimination to ensure it continues to be relevant and is effective in supporting employers and employees.
Asked by: Kevan Jones (Labour - North Durham)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether friends, family and employees of subpostmasters will be permitted to take part in the Alternative Dispute Resolution process proposed in response to the Post Office Horizon scandal.
Answered by Paul Scully
Alternative Dispute Resolution is a consensual process, through which those making claims (and their advisors) can question and challenge how their claims have been assessed. The Terms of Reference for the Historical Shortfall Scheme explain its Dispute Resolution procedure. Processes for those with quashed convictions will be agreed between the Post Office and a claimant’s legal representatives.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent discussions (a) she and (b) her officials have had with Chinese counterparts on the suspension of all direct flights from the UK to China by the Chinese authorities.
Answered by Amanda Milling - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The UK Government recognises the importance of people-to-people links with China and is fully aware of the impact of the suspension of direct flights has on the business, academia and tourism sectors, as well as those separated from family and friends. The Department for Transport, and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office have been working together to seek agreement from the Chinese Government to allow the resumption of direct scheduled passenger services. We have raised this in Beijing and London at the highest levels.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has plans to (a) maintain funding to and (b) extend the contract for Family Rights Group’s family advice service beyond March 2022.
Answered by Will Quince
Departmental officials recently wrote to the Family Rights Group stating our intention, subject to internal approvals and business planning, to extend the family and friends advice service contract by 18 months. We expect to give confirmation of our decision early in 2022.