Asked by: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, why recipients of carer's allowance with adult dependants are not eligible for (a) child tax credits and (b) working tax credits; and if he will review his policy.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
Carer’s Allowance is a taxable benefit, paid to an eligible individual looking after someone with substantial caring needs. Persons in receipt of Carer’s Allowance are not excluded from either Child Tax Credit (CTC) or Working Tax Credit (WTC) provided they meet the usual conditions of entitlement for tax credits.
Asked by: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for what reason his Department stopped people from being able to make payments to HMRC at post office branches.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The facility to pay HMRC at the Post Office was withdrawn by the service provider, Santander, on 14 December 2017. HMRC were not the only users of this service and had no influence on this decision or the timing of the withdrawal.
Asked by: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much money was paid by people to HMRC at post office branches in each of the last five years.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The table below shows the volume and values of payments made by customers at the Post Office to HMRC for each of the last five tax years (6 April – 5 April). 2018-19 shows as zero because the facility to pay HMRC at the Post Office was withdrawn by the service provider, Santander, on 14 December 2017.
Girobank / Transcash payments into HMRC | ||
Tax Year | Volume | Value |
2014/15 | 2,220,883 | £1,681,412,410.52 |
2015/16 | 1,598,644 | £976,929,804.14 |
2016/17 | 936,457 | £774,197,939.97 |
2017/18 | 432,596 | £373,502,157.54 |
2018/19 | 0 | £0.00 |
Asked by: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to ensure older people are able to build and maintain savings for retirement.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Government is committed to supporting people of all incomes and at all stages of life to save.
Older people will continue to benefit from a number of measures the Government has introduced in recent years.
The Government has increased the amount that individuals, including older people and those of State Pension age, can earn or receive in savings interest before paying income tax to £12,500 per year. As a result, people can keep more of their income to invest as they choose.
The amount of money that people can save into their ISAs each year (the annual subscription allowance) has been increased to a record £20,000.
Since April 2016, individuals have also been able to benefit from a new Personal Savings Allowance of up to £1,000 for basic rate taxpayers and up to £500 for higher rate taxpayers.
As a result of these measures, over 95% of people with savings income pay no tax on that income.
Asked by: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what legislative time conditions are in place for employers to report employees' earnings to HMRC; and what powers HMRC has to penalise employers who do not meet those conditions.
Answered by Mel Stride - Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Employers are required to report to HMRC any relevant payments made to its employees and deductions made on their behalf, on or before the employee’s payday, under Regulation 67B Income Tax (Pay As You Earn) Regulations 2003. There are some exceptions to this obligation, which are set out under Regulation 67D.
Late filed returns may be subject to penalties under Schedule 55 Finance Act 2009.
Asked by: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 3 April 2019 to Question 238660, how much regional aid spending in (a) Scotland, (b) Wales, (c) Northern Ireland and (d) England was not subject to the Barnett formula for each year since 2009.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
Pursuant to my answer of [10 April 2018] to Question 241453, the Barnett formula is applied to all changes in the budgets of UK Government departments rather than to specific areas of spending. It is not therefore possible to say how much funding the devolved administrations received in relation to departmental spending on regional aid in England.
In addition, Barnett consequentials do not arise from any spending in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland where there is no change to UK Government departmental spending.
EU funding for regional aid expenditure does not attract Barnett consequentials as there are separate arrangements for allocating these funds between departments and the devolved administrations.
Asked by: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 3 April 2019 to Question 238660, how much of the Barnett figures in the referenced publications derived from regional aid spending in (a) Scotland, (b) Wales, (c) Northern Ireland and (d) each region of England in each year since 2009.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
The Barnett formula is applied to all changes in the budgets of UK Government departments rather than to specific areas of spending. It is not therefore possible to say how much funding the devolved administrations received in relation to departmental spending on regional aid in England.
In addition, Barnett consequentials do not arise from any spending in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland where there is no change to UK Government departmental spending.
EU funding for regional aid expenditure also does not attract Barnett consequentials as there are separate arrangements for allocating these funds between departments and the devolved administrations.
Asked by: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the total amount of regional aid not subject to the Barnett formula (a) was for each year since 2009 and (b) is projected to be in each year for which information is available for (i) Scotland, (ii) Wales, (iii) Northern Ireland and (iv) each region of England.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
A detailed breakdown of the block grant funding for each of the devolved administrations is available in the Block Grant Transparency publication which is available on line at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/block-grant-transparency-december-2018
This recently developed publication sets out how the block grants for the Scottish Government, Welsh Government and a Northern Ireland Executive have been calculated during the 2015 Spending Review period.
Prior to the publication of the Block Grant Transparency document, the Annual Reports of the Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland Offices each contained data relating to the composition of the block grants.
No funding has been provided to English regions outside the scope of the Barnett Formula.
Asked by: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many households in receipt of child tax credit have had their payments reduced as a result of the two-child tax credit limit in the Motherwell and Wishaw constituency; and what savings have accrued to the public purse as a result of the introduction of that limit in that constituency.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
The information is not held and could only be collected at disproportionate cost. However, the government published an impact assessment in July 2015 which shows the number of Child Tax Credit or Universal Credit claimants who were expected to be affected by the policy over the next five years and the estimated savings from the change. The impact assessment is available at: https://www.parliament.uk/documents/impact-assessments/IA15-006E.pdf
Asked by: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many claims have been made under the non-consensual conception exemption for child tax credit in the Motherwell and Wishaw constituency.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
I refer the Honourable Member to the answer given on 25th April 2018 in response to question 136579.