Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department is taking to increase the (a) transparency and (b) standardisation of incumbent water companies’ bulk supply and discharge tariffs.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is committed to ensuring that the water industry offers a stable, predictable and transparent charging regime for bulk supply and discharge.
We updated our charging guidance to Ofwat in 2016 and provided further supplementary guidance to the regulator in 2018. It can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/water-industry-charging-guidance-to-ofwat
Ofwat, the independent economic regulator for the water industry in England and Wales, must have regard to our guidance in their regulation of water companies in England. They set out how they regulate bulk supply and discharge charges in their charging rules. Ofwat's charging rules were updated last year, taking effect in April 2022. These updates simplified the publishing deadlines for charges and introduced a new requirement on English water companies to use standardised terms and worked examples in their charging arrangements for developer services.
Bulk supply and discharge charging guidance is a devolved matter in Wales and Scotland. Welsh government’s charging guidance to Ofwat can be found at Water charging guidance | GOV.WALES
Scottish government’s charging guidance is issued directly by Scottish Water, and can be found at Microsoft Word - Part 1 Wholesale Charges Scheme 2022-23 - Non TC - Jan 4.2% (scottishwater.co.uk)
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to hold incumbent water companies accountable for failures to address storm overflows and leakages.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government has made it clear that water companies must urgently tackle sewage overflows. This is set out in the Storm Overflows Reduction Plan, which represents the largest investment programme in water company history. Through increased monitoring and reporting requirements introduced in the Environment Act 2021, and priorities set through Ofwat as part of the Strategic Policy Statement to Ofwat, regulators and government will hold water companies to account. The Environment Agency and Ofwat have recently launched the largest criminal and civil investigations into water company sewage discharges ever, at over 2200 treatment works, following new data coming to light as a result of increased monitoring. Since 2015, the Environment Agency and Ofwat have brought 59 prosecutions against water companies, securing fines of over £144 million.
Water companies have performance commitments set by Ofwat that they need to meet. These include leakage and wastewater treatment work compliance. They face automatic financial penalties when these are missed. In November, Ofwat announced that almost £135 million would be returned to customers as a result of companies underperforming against their performance commitments.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to help climate finance reach low-income communities vulnerable to climate change; and whether she has held discussions with her counterparts in high-income countries on this matter.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The UK's International Climate Finance delivered by BEIS, FCDO, and Defra, supports developing nations to adapt and build resilience to the effects of climate change including through improved protecting and restoring nature, improving food security, water management and preparedness against climate-related disasters. At COP27 the Prime Minister announced the UK will triple our funding on adaptation from £500 million in 2019 to £1.5 billion in 2025. In addition, in partnership with the Champions Group of Adaptation Finance, the UK and other climate finance providers are collaborating with low income climate vulnerable countries, to address barriers to increasing flows, quality, effectiveness and accessibility of adaptation finance, including to the poorest people and communities who are already suffering the most from climate change.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will make it his policy to increase funding to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
Global health remains a high priority for the UK. We are a founding donor of the Global Fund and its third largest donor historically, investing over £4.4 billion to date. At the seventh replenishment pledging conference, the UK committed to remain a strong supporter of the Global Fund, continuing to provide significant financial and political leadership and to announce our pledge shortly.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessments she has made of the adequacy of disability benefits in supporting constituents with mortgage repayments.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Support for homeowners in receipt of income-related benefits, including disabled people on those benefits, is available in the form of Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI), an interest-bearing loan offered at the same rate it was as a benefit.
SMI provides support for homeowners who are unable to meet their mortgage repayments due to illness, unemployment or other personal crisis or income shocks.
The primary purpose of SMI is to help people meet their existing mortgage commitments so that they can stay in their homes without fear of repossession.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on the policy proposals announced on 9 June 2022 for Housing Benefit to be counted towards the costs of a mortgage in reforms of the housing market.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has not yet met with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to discuss this policy.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Prime Minister announcement on Right to buy scheme extension on 9 June, what assessments he has made of the potential merits of allowing Housing Benefit to be counted towards mortgage costs.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Since the announcement on the 9 June, the department has begun looking at changing welfare rules so that people who receive housing support can use their benefit towards mortgage payments for a new mortgage instead of on rent.
Further consideration of the merits of changing welfare rules to support homeownership will be completed as the policy is developed in line with steers from the new administration.
A full equalities impact assessment will also be carried out in due course, and before any legislation is laid with the House.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of creating a tax unregistered pensions scheme for senior NHS officials to help support the retention of NHS consultants who would otherwise retire early to avoid high tax costs.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Pensions tax relief is one of the most expensive reliefs in the personal tax system. In 2020/21 Income Tax and employer National Insurance Contributions relief cost £67.3 billion. The annual allowance helps to ensure that the highest earning pension savers do not receive a disproportionate benefit. 99 per cent of pension savers make annual contributions below £40,000, the level of standard annual allowance which has applied from 2014/15.
An unregistered scheme for the NHS would not benefit the vast majority of NHS staff, as members would receive no tax relief on their contributions.
The Government is committed to ensuring that hard-working NHS staff do not find themselves reducing their work commitments due to the interaction between their pay, their pension, and the relevant tax regime. On 22 September, the Government announced it will change elements of the NHS Pension Scheme to help retain doctors, nurses and other senior NHS staff, to increase capacity. These changes include:
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will take steps with Cabinet colleagues to make the NHS Pension Scheme a tax unregistered scheme to help increase senior consultant retention.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Government has no plans to introduce a tax unregistered pension scheme for the National Health Service. The majority of NHS Pension Scheme members can build their pensions tax-free and an unregistered arrangement would remove this tax relief on contributions and a tax-free lump sum of up to 25% of the value of their pension on retirement. The Government has asked NHS England to work with NHS organisations to introduce schemes to allow recycling of employer pension contributions to high earners who opt out of the NHS Pension scheme due to the impact of pension tax.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment he has made of the potential impact of his recent fiscal policies on the cost of living for households.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
On 8 September, government announced an ‘Energy Price Guarantee’, which means that a typical UK household will pay no more than £2500 a year on their energy bill over the next 2 years. This measure will save the average household around £1000 a year from October 2022.
In addition to this, the government has already announced £37 billion support for the cost of living this financial year – including a £400 discount for all households through the Energy Bills Support Scheme. The Chancellor has been clear that unleashing investment and growth is the only sustainable means of increasing living standards for all households.