Asked by: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent progress has been made on the National Savings and Investment's green savings product; and whether the Government has plans to offer that product to savers in summer 2021.
Answered by John Glen
Since the Chancellor’s announcement at Spring Budget 2021 that a Green Savings Bond will be offered through NS&I, work has continued at pace on the development of this product. The Green Savings Bond will be linked to the UK’s sovereign Green Bond framework, due to be published in June 2021, and will give UK savers the opportunity to take part in the collective effort to tackle climate change. Further details on the Green Savings Bond will be published in due course, prior to the product going on sale this summer.
Asked by: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much Gift Aid has been paid to charities in the Scottish Borders in each of the last three years.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - Leader of HM Official Opposition
The information requested is not readily available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much the Soft Drinks Industry Levy has raised since that Levy was introduced.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - Leader of HM Official Opposition
Since its introduction in April 2018, the provisional total for revenue raised from the Soft Drinks Industry Levy up to and including December 2020 is £802 million. This consists of the following amounts raised per financial year:
2018-19: £240 million
2019-20: £337 million
2020-21: £224 million (provisional year to date total covering revenue received between April 2020 and December 2020).
The discrepancy of £1 million between the overall total (£802 million) and the sum of financial year subtotals (£801 million) is due to rounding used by HMRC when producing these statistics.
Asked by: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent discussions he has had with the Scottish Government on freeports.
Answered by Steve Barclay
Freeports will attract new businesses, spreading jobs, investment and opportunity to towns and cities up and down the country.
Last month, I met with the Scottish Government a few days before they publicly announced their intention to work with the UK Government to launch a Freeports bidding process in Scotland before the end of March.
I strongly welcome that announcement and look forward to bringing the benefits of Freeports to Scotland.
Asked by: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of compensating people who were unable to claim child benefit due to delays in receiving their child's birth certificate as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Government announced on 7 April 2020 that, as General Register Offices were closed or operating at a reduced capacity during the COVID-19 outbreak, HM Revenue and Customs would allow parents to claim Child Benefit for their newborns without having to register their child’s birth first, to ensure they did not miss out on Child Benefit payments. Child Benefit can be backdated for up to three months.
The press release announcing these measures is at:
www.gov.uk/government/news/dont-miss-out-claim-child-benefit-by-phone-or-post-hmrc-tells-new-parents
Asked by: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many discounts were claimed as part of the Eat Out to Help Out Scheme in (a) the Scottish Borders, (b) Scotland and (c) the UK.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
HMRC have published constituency level data, on claims received up to 27 August 2020, on GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/eat-out-to-help-out-scheme-claims-by-parliamentary-constituency. There are also plans to develop a wider official statistics release for the scheme once the Claims Service closes at the end of September.
In addition, HMRC have published data on a weekly basis about registered premises and claims received on GOV.UK.
Asked by: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent comparative assessment he has made of the competitiveness of NS&I and high street bank savings product interest rates.
Answered by John Glen
NS&I has a core remit to deliver cost-effective financing for government. In effect, customers’ deposits with NS&I are a form of government borrowing, and the rates that NS&I offer impact the cost to government of this borrowing. Rates on NS&I products are kept under review and set in accordance with its operating framework to balance the interests of savers; taxpayers; and the broader financial services sector.
Asked by: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what comparative assessment he has made of the level of financial support for workers provided by (a) the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and (b) governments in other countries that are similarly affected by the covid-19 pandemic.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
On 12 May, the Chancellor announced an extension of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme until the end of October. The scheme has been extended in full until the end of July, with changes concerning part-time working and employer contributions from August. The Government will keep all policies under review, and monitors the economic support packages for workers implemented by other governments around the world. Several other countries (such as Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada) have announced similar measures.
Asked by: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent estimate his Department has made of the number of people in the Scottish Borders who have been furloughed as part of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
Applications for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) opened on Monday 20th April. As of Thursday 23rd April HMRC had received about 512,000 claims with a total value of around £4.5bn.
This is a new scheme and HMRC are currently working through the analysis they will be able to provide based on the data available. HMRC will make the timescales for publication and the types of data available in due course.
Asked by: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many people are using Help to Save in Scotland.
Answered by John Glen
HMRC has published the number of opened Help to Save accounts registered to addresses in Scotland to end-January 2020. The following link provides the latest edition of this publication:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/help-to-save-statistics
12,050 accounts had been opened and registered to addresses in Scotland to end-January 2020.