Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the policy papers entitled Spending Review 2025, published on 30 June 2025, and Budget 2025, published on 28 November 2025, what their Department’s capital Departmental Expenditure Limit (DEL) will be in each year of the Spending Review period; how much capital funding has been allocated to each of their Department’s programmes; and how much and what proportion of the capital DEL allocation remains unallocated in each year.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The capital DEL budget is as published in the Spending Review 2025 documentation. The detailed allocation of the capital DEL budget is still to be finalised in the annual business planning process.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will provide a list of assets held by the Crown Estate.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
This information can be found on The Crown Estate website.
Asked by: Simon Hoare (Conservative - North Dorset)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many staff have been employed by the OBR in each year since it was established.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) was established by the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Act 2011. Its annual report and accounts, which are laid before Parliament and published on its website, set out detail on the number of staff employed at the end of March in each year.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the answer of of 7 May 2025 to question 48538, what the timetable is for the Crown Estate negotiating a Partnership Agreement with GB Energy.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Great British Energy's Strategic plan, published on 4 December 2025, sets out detail regarding arrangements between the two organisations.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate she has made of the average increase in annual tax paid by households earning between £25,000 and £50,000 following the Autumn Budget 2025.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
HM Treasury’s ‘Impact on households’ publication, produced alongside Budget 2025, shows that the impact of government tax, welfare and public service spending decisions from Autumn Budget 2024 onwards are progressive and benefit households in the lowest income deciles the most, on average, with increases in tax concentrated on the highest income households. On average, all but the richest 10% of households will benefit from policy decisions in 2028-29.
Asked by: Lewis Cocking (Conservative - Broxbourne)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the Autumn Budget 2025, published on 26 November, HC 1492, on what evidential basis she estimated the saving arising from the abolition of Police and Crime Commissioners and re-organising local government structures.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Government is committed to cutting the cost of politics.
The figures were calculated based on estimated savings from the potential reduction in local councillors through local government reorganisation and from the abolition of Police and Crime Commissioners.
These estimates are built from a range of sources including Local Government Boundary Commission data; salaries; office costs; election costs; sampling of councillor expenditure data from current authorities.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether, following the Government’s decision to abolish the Valuation Office Agency and transfer its functions into HM Revenue and Customs, she plans to maintain the current Valuation Office Agency methodology for assessing business-rates valuations.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
At Budget 2025, the government published a Call for Evidence on Business Rates and Investment which will explore concerns raised by a small number of ratepayers whose properties are valued on the ‘Receipts & Expenditure’ methodology and options to improve predictability and stability.Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of changes to the Air Passenger Duty in the Autumn Budget 2025 on the competitiveness of the UK aviation sector compared to other European countries.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The government is committed to the long-term future of the aviation sector in the UK and recognises the benefits of the connectivity it creates between the UK and the rest of the world. The government remains committed to maintaining a competitive and dynamic aviation sector that supports jobs, skills, and innovation across the UK.
Following previous increases to Air Passenger Duty (APD) rates to account for below inflation rates, the government will uprate APD rates in line with RPI from 1 April 2027 and rounded to the nearest penny. This constitutes a real terms freeze.
This will continue to ensure that airlines make a fair contribution to the public finances, particularly given that tickets are VAT free, and aviation fuel incurs no duty.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what engagement she undertook with the pub and hospitality sector ahead of the 2025 Budget, particularly in the context of Business Rates.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Treasury Ministers and officials engaged with a wide range of stakeholders across the pub and hospitality sector ahead of the Budget to discuss business rates.
We continue to engage with the hospitality sector to understand the pressures they face.
Asked by: Jess Brown-Fuller (Liberal Democrat - Chichester)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether she is considering additional fiscal support for (a) small business and (b) hospitality.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The hospitality sector and small businesses make significant contributions to the exchequer, the UK economy, and society.
At the Budget, the VOA announced updated property values from the 2026 revaluation. This revaluation is the first since Covid, which has led to significant increases in rateable values for some properties, including those in the hospitality sector as they recover from the pandemic. To support with bill increases, at the Budget, the Government announced a support package worth £4.3 billion over the next three years, including protection for ratepayers seeing their bills increase because of the revaluation. As a result, over half of ratepayers will see no bill increases, including 23% seeing their bills go down. This means most properties seeing increases will see them capped at 15% or less next year, or £800 for the smallest.
More broadly, the Government is delivering a long overdue reform to rebalance the business rates system and support the high street, as promised in our manifesto.
The Government is doing this by introducing new permanently lower tax rates for eligible retail, hospitality and leisure (RHL) properties, including pubs. These new tax rates are worth nearly £900 million per year, and will benefit over 750,000 properties.
The new RHL tax rates replace the temporary RHL relief that has been winding down since Covid. Unlike RHL relief, the new rates are permanent, giving businesses certainty and stability, and there will be no cap, meaning all qualifying properties on high streets across England will benefit.
Furthermore, we have worked with the hospitality sector to announce the first National Licensing Policy Framework which sets a new strategic direction for licensing authorities and encourages them to have more regard to growth when reviewing licensing applications and decisions. Responding to sector asks, we will also explore further planning reforms to make it easier for hospitality and high-street businesses to expand and grow. To help drive these reforms, we will appoint a new Retail and Hospitality Envoy to champion these sectors across government.
This is on top of measures we have already announced, such as: