Asked by: Chuka Umunna (Liberal Democrat - Streatham)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the number of new customs officials that will be required as a result of leaving the Customs Union; and what the estimated additional annual cost to the public purse will be of employing those officials.
Answered by Mel Stride - Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
HMRC are considering the capacity of staff working in customs across government as part of their EU exit planning. The staffing levels and resources required by HMRC after the UK leaves the European Union will be dependent on the outcome of negotiations.
Asked by: Chuka Umunna (Liberal Democrat - Streatham)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what contingency plans are in place in the event that the Customs Declaration Service is not fully operational before the UK is due to leave the EU in March 2019.
Answered by Mel Stride - Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The delivery of the new Customs Declaration Service (CDS) is on target, and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) expects to meet its planned delivery date in January 2019. The progress of the programme is subject to rigorous and ongoing internal scrutiny.
Nevertheless, HMRC has robust contingency arrangements in place, including:
- A transition process between August 2018 and January 2019 where traders will start moving to CDS.
- Dual-running of the existing Customs Handling of Import and Export Freight (CHIEF) service with CDS.
- Ensuring CHIEF can handle larger volumes of declarations.
Asked by: Chuka Umunna (Liberal Democrat - Streatham)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the new Customs Declaration Service will be fully operational by January 2019; and whether it will have been fully tested to ensure that it is able to manage any increase in the volume of declarations associated with leaving the Customs Union.
Answered by Mel Stride - Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The delivery of the new Customs Declaration Service (CDS) is on target, and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) expects to meet its planned delivery date in January 2019. CDS is undergoing comprehensive testing to ensure that it can manage an increase in the volume of declarations. HMRC is following industry best practice in carrying out that work, by performance testing the individual software components first and gradually building up to test across the whole of the CDS system.
Asked by: Chuka Umunna (Liberal Democrat - Streatham)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential additional bureaucratic requirements that will be imposed on British businesses in the event that the UK leaves the Customs Union.
Answered by Mel Stride - Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
One of the government’s key objectives for the UK’s future customs regime is to ensure that trade including that with the EU remains as frictionless as possible. At this stage the level of future facilitation at the border between the UK and the EU is unknown and subject to the outcome of negotiations. It is therefore not possible to weigh up the costs and benefits to business.
The government is undertaking a comprehensive programme of analytical work to assess, across a range of scenarios on a sector by sector basis, the economic impacts of exiting the European Union, but this analysis is sensitive in the context of negotiations with the EU. As Parliament has agreed, it would not be appropriate to publish any such information that could damage our negotiating position.
Asked by: Chuka Umunna (Liberal Democrat - Streatham)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many citizens of non-UK EU countries work in his Department, its agencies and non-departmental public bodies.
Answered by Simon Kirby
All Government Departments are bound by legal requirements concerning the right to work in the UK and, in addition, the Civil Service Nationality Rules. Evidence of nationality is checked at the point of recruitment into the Civil Service as part of wider pre-employment checks, but there is no requirement on departments to retain this information beyond the point at which it has served its purpose.
Asked by: Chuka Umunna (Liberal Democrat - Streatham)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what research he has (a) commissioned and (b) examined on the effect of Enterprise Zones on investment and job creation in other neighbouring localities.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The 24 Enterprise Zones that have been established in England since 2012 had by December 2014 provided 18,949 jobs, attracted £2.2 billion of private investment, and attracted over 540 new businesses. We continue to review all available evidence on the efficacy and impact of Enterprise Zones, including from previous programmes in the United Kingdom and abroad.
Asked by: Chuka Umunna (Liberal Democrat - Streatham)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what policy evaluations have been carried out by external organisations for his Department and its agencies in each financial year since 2010-11; whether the output of those evaluations was published; which organisation carried out each such evaluation; and what the value of each contract to provide that evaluation was.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
Information on policy evaluations carried out by external organisations is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Chuka Umunna (Liberal Democrat - Streatham)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what discussions his Department and the Government Chief Scientific Adviser had with Departments in advance of decisions to cut departmental research budgets or expenditure since May 2010; and on what dates each such discussion took place with each such department.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Treasury Ministers and officials have regular meetings with departments in which a wide range of issues are discussed as part of the process of policy development. However we do not disclose details of confidential discussions between Ministers or advice received from civil servants.
Asked by: Chuka Umunna (Liberal Democrat - Streatham)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking in response to the outcome of the Government's consultation on matching SMEs rejected for finance with alternative lenders.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
The Government took powers in the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 to require the UK’s major banks to offer SMEs they reject for finance the opportunity to be referred to Finance Platforms that can help match them with alternative finance providers.
The Government will lay Secondary Legislation implementing the policy before Parliament as soon as is practicable.
Asked by: Chuka Umunna (Liberal Democrat - Streatham)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what amount his Department and its agencies spent on research and development in each year since 2010-11; and what proportion such spending was of total departmental spending.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Information on the total amount of expenditure by HM Treasury on both research and development and the total departmental spending on services is publically available on gov.uk as part of the Country and Regional Analysis statistical release. This information covers 2009-10 through to 2013-14 and can be found at the following web link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/country-and-regional-analysis-2014
This data can be accessed by using either the ‘interactive tables’ or the ‘database’.
The CRA is compiled from departmental spending data submitted to HM Treasury on services, split by sub-functions. This data that each department provides, uses internationally-agreed definitions called the Classifications of the Functions of Government (UN COFOG). These functions include and separately identify expenditure on various Research and Development activities.