Asked by: Lord Tebbit (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government on what grounds, and on whose authority, the National Savings and Investments Agency makes a decision to dishonour a cheque.
Answered by Earl of Courtown - Opposition Deputy Chief Whip (Lords)
National Savings and Investments (NS&I) comply with the law relating to cheques. There are several circumstances in which NS&I would reject a cheque. These include the cheque being unsigned by the customer, out of date, or defaced. The Director of Savings, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of NS&I, is the authority responsible for administering this policy.
Premium Bond prize warrants are legally similar to cheques. As with cheques, they can be rejected if a duplicate has been issued. Due to an administrative error, a number of duplicate Premium Bond prize warrants were issued to customers in the October 2019 prize draw. NS&I have since updated their processes to prevent this error occurring in future prize draws.
Asked by: Lord Tebbit (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what are the categories of food materials and products subject to import taxes or duties imposed by the EU.
Answered by Lord Bates
The EU Common External Tariff applies to all EU members.
The Tariff is the name given to the combination of the nomenclature (or classification of goods) and the duty rates which apply to each category of goods. The duty rates differ from one kind of good to another depending on what they are and where they come from. The rates also depend on the economic sensitivity of the goods.
The EU uses the World Customs Organisation’s Harmonised Commodity Description and Coding System (HS) as the basis for the Tariff. The HS comprises approximately 5,300 article/product descriptions that appear as headings and subheadings, arranged in 99 chapters, grouped in 21 sections.
The EU Tariff contains the goods classification table which covers all categories of goods and the conventional import duty rates. The table is voluminous. It lists around 9500 classification codes. Food materials and products are found in Chapters 1 to 24. The type of product, the ingredients list or materials used to make it, the recipe and even the production method can affect the classification of a good.
The EU Tariff is available to view on the EU Europa website. To get the full picture, the EU’s tariff database (TARIC) is also available to view and contains all the tariff preference and trade measures.
In the event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal the UK Trade Tariff, detailing the goods classification codes and duty rates for UK imports will be available, as now, on GOV.UK. Importers of goods into the UK will no longer use EU Tariff information published by the EU.
Asked by: Lord Tebbit (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have sought, or will seek, a valuation of the buildings and office spaces (1) owned, (2) rented, and (3) leased, by the EU wherever located; and what share of those assets have been financed by the UK.
Answered by Lord Bates
The UK makes contributions to the EU budget as a whole, rather than financing individual projects or assets.
The arrangements for withdrawal from the EU, including financial matters, will be a matter for the negotiations as part of the Article 50 process. The government is committed to working with the EU to determine a fair settlement for Britain’s exit and the best deal for UK taxpayers.
Asked by: Lord Tebbit (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether HMRC collects any revenue from football club transfer payments.
Answered by Lord Bates
Football transfer fees are subject to VAT according to the normal rules. Any profits made by football clubs are subject to Corporation Tax in the usual way. Payments made to players as part of their transfer, such as signing-on fees, are taxable as earnings.
Asked by: Lord Tebbit (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the remarks by Lord O’Neill of Gatley on 28 April (HL Deb, col 1244), what provision was made in the Treasury document published on 18 April on the economic efforts of a UK withdrawal from the EU for funding the health, education, welfare and other costs associated with the forecast increase in that document of three million in the population of the UK by 2030.
Answered by Lord O'Neill of Gatley
“HM Treasury analysis: the long-term economic impact of EU membership and the alternatives” shows that after 15 years, even with savings from reduced contributions to the EU, receipts would be £20 billion a year lower in the central estimate of the EEA, £36 billion a year lower for the negotiated bilateral agreement and £45 billion a year lower for the WTO alternative. £36 billion is more than a third of the NHS budget and the equivalent of 8p on the basic rate of income tax.
The HMT analysis does not forecast immigration but uses the latest figures from ONS as a modelling assumption. These numbers do not take account of future Government actions to reduce immigration, including the emergency brake on welfare agreed as part of the renegotiation.
The Government is committed to controlling migration by dealing with those who shouldn’t be here, by deporting illegal immigrants and improving the skills of British workers, so we reduce the demand for skilled migrants.
The Prime Minister has re-negotiated the UK’s position within the EU to close back-door routes into the UK and exert greater control over EU migration by tackling the draw of our welfare system.
But net migration remains too high and there is still more work to do.
Asked by: Lord Tebbit (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made towards agreement within the EU on updating the fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive.
Answered by Lord O'Neill of Gatley
The Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (‘the Directive’) has been agreed and was formally adopted in June 2015. Member States now have until June 2017 to transpose its requirements into national law. The Government plans to publish a consultation on transposition of the Directive by early Spring which will run for a full 12 weeks. We will consult on areas where the Directive gives us options or discretion on how we transpose its provisions as well as areas where we can improve the UK’s anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism regime.
We will continue to consider any further changes to this regime in response to emerging threats.