Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have any plans to restore VAT free shopping for foreign tourists.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
As set out at Spring Budget 2024, the government is considering the findings of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s review of the original costing of the withdrawal of tax-free shopping, published in the Economic and Fiscal Outlook on 6 March, alongside industry representations and broader data. The Government welcomes further submissions from stakeholders in response to the OBR’s findings. All taxes are kept under review.
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the total cost of eradicating homelessness in England.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Government has made the unprecedented commitment to end rough sleeping and to fully enforce the Homelessness Reduction Act. In September 2022, we published our cross-government strategy ‘Ending Rough Sleeping for Good’, and we are investing almost £2.4 billion to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping between 2022 and 2025.
We are also taking action to prevent people from becoming homeless or rough sleeping in the first place. We are investing over £1.2 billion in the Homelessness Prevention Grant over three years, including a £109 million top-up for 2024/25, giving councils the funding they need to prevent homelessness and help more people sooner.
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of highway funding is spent on footways.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
This information is not held. In England local highway authorities have a duty under Section 41 of the Highways Act 1980 to maintain the highway network in their area, including footways. Further information and best practice on the Well-managed Highway infrastructure Code of Practice is available from the UK Roads Leadership Group. Based on previous research, the Department estimates that on average local highway authorities spend around 9% of their highway maintenance budgets on maintaining footways.
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to investigate whether Fujitsu staff had unauthorised access to the Post Office’s Horizon software system; and, if so, whether there have been any alleged cases of fraud or theft of Post Office funds by Fujitsu staff.
Answered by Lord Offord of Garvel - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The independent Post Office Horizon Inquiry was set up – and put on a statutory footing - to review all the evidence to establish a clear account of the implementation and failings of Horizon so that a scandal like this does not happen again.
Until Sir Wyn’s work is completed, and all the evidence is known, it would be premature for me to comment on every aspect of this scandal alongside this inquiry which is there to get to the bottom of the facts.
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report commissioned by the Local Government Association The path to inclusive footways, published on 10 February; and what steps they are taking to ensure that (1) electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and (2) micromobility parking provision, do not obstruct footways.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government’s Electric Vehicle (EV) Infrastructure Strategy, published in March 2022, outlined that local authorities are best placed to understand what charging infrastructure is required, and have a key role in ensuring the delivery of chargepoints meets the needs of their areas. The Government and industry sponsored, Publicly Available Standard (PAS) 1899 provides specifications on the placement, design and installation of accessible public EV chargepoints.
Cross-pavement cable solutions can be used to channel EV charging wires across the pavement safely. As part of the Plan for Drivers, the Government committed to provide guidance on the use of safe cross-pavement charging solutions, best practice to local authorities on relevant legislation, permissions, and how to consider applications.
The Government has extended its e-scooter trials until May 2026 to build on current learning across areas including usage, safety, parking provision and environmental impacts. The Department’s guidance for local authorities and operators taking part in trials sets out that appropriate parking provision should be provided to ensure e-scooters do not become obstructive.
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to implementing a windfall tax on the excess profits of UK banks.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Banks already face an additional rate of tax on their profits in the form of the Bank Corporation Tax Surcharge – meaning they pay 3 percentage points more on their profits (28%) than most other businesses (25%). This is in addition to a charge on the largest banks’ balance sheets in the form of the Bank Levy.
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made, if any, of the incentives required to encourage housing developers to join a voluntary energy-use monitoring scheme.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
We are committed to ensuring that good quality homes are built which meet the energy efficiency standards they were designed to. That is why, as part of the Future Homes and Buildings Standards consultation, we are consulting on introducing a post-occupancy fabric performance testing scheme for new homes.
We are proposing that developers opt-in to performance testing a proportion of their new homes. This would enable us to gather better data on how significantly new homes are underperforming.
We envisage that many developers will opt-in to the performance testing scheme and have been encouraged by work some developers are already doing to monitor and improve the actual performance of their homes.
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to introduce mandatory energy performance testing for new homes.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
We are committed to ensuring that good quality homes are built which meet the energy efficiency standards they were designed to. That is why, as part of the Future Homes and Buildings Standards consultation, we are consulting on introducing a post-occupancy fabric performance testing scheme for new homes.
We are proposing that developers opt-in to performance testing a proportion of their new homes. This would enable us to gather better data on how significantly new homes are underperforming.
We envisage that many developers will opt-in to the performance testing scheme and have been encouraged by work some developers are already doing to monitor and improve the actual performance of their homes.