Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South and Mid Down)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the document entitled UK Infrastructure: A 10 Year Strategy, CP 1344, published on 19 June 2025, if he will publish the Barnett consequential for Northern Ireland for each new item of funding announced in that strategy.
Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Barnett formula is applied when departmental budgets change – not when departments announce how they are spending their budgets.
When changes to UK Government departments’ budgets were confirmed at Spending Review 2025 on 11 June, the Barnett formula was applied in the usual way, providing Barnett consequentials to the Northern Ireland Executive. The devolved governments are receiving the largest Spending Review settlements, in real terms, since devolution in 1998.
The published Block Grant Transparency document provides a detailed breakdown of how the block grants are calculated and the next version will be published in due course.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South and Mid Down)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the total value is of contracts awarded to outside providers for the provision of the Making Tax Digital programme.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The MTD Programme’s current external supplier expenditure to date totals approximately £0.4 billion. MTD for VAT is expected to bring in over £4 billion in tax revenue by reducing error in VAT returns, whilst MTD for Income Tax is expected to bring in an additional £1.95 billion additional tax revenue by 2029 to 2030.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South and Mid Down)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment HMRC has made of the potential impact of quarterly reporting on smaller businesses.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Quarterly updates required under Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax are not the same as full tax returns. They are simple summaries of income and expenses. Software will automatically draw data from a taxpayer’s digital records so where these records are up to date, updates will be quick and easy to submit.
Quarterly updates help to reduce the risk of error by moving record-keeping closer to real time. With this data already captured in software, preparing the end-of-year return should also be easier, as the information needed is already available. Quarterly updates can also provide estimates of tax liability and nudging and prompts to support users to get their tax right.
HMRC has an established model for estimating the impacts that result from MTD. The latest published assessment is available at:
MTD for VAT is already helping businesses to increase their productivity, with most users surveyed reporting benefits including time savings and greater accuracy.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South and Mid Down)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will ensure funding is made available to support economically inactive beneficiaries in Northern Ireland into employment after the end of UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The UK Shared Prosperity Fund was extended at Autumn Budget 2024 at a level of £902m, providing support for local areas, including economic inactivity support in Northern Ireland. In 2025 – 2026, Northern Ireland was allocated £45.48 million under the UKSPF, of which £25.8m is expected to be spent on economic inactivity support. Further decisions on local growth funding are a matter for the Spending Review.
Wider employment support is the responsibility of the Northern Ireland Executive.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South and Mid Down)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the service standard level time is for businesses to receive a UK Internal Market Scheme number.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The UK Internal Market Scheme (UKIMS) was launched in June 2023, allowing businesses across the United Kingdom to apply, and HMRC has successfully encouraged over 10,000 traders to get authorised.
HMRC is required to take a decision regarding the outcome of a UKIMS application within 120 days days. Applications are typically processed much faster with an average turnaround time of 12 to 15 working days. HMRC must undertake a range of checks to verify eligibility for the scheme and, in certain cases, seek further information from businesses. We do not collect data on the time taken for traders to complete UKIMS applications.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South and Mid Down)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the average time taken is for businesses to (a) apply for and (b) receive a UK Internal Market Scheme number.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The UK Internal Market Scheme (UKIMS) was launched in June 2023, allowing businesses across the United Kingdom to apply, and HMRC has successfully encouraged over 10,000 traders to get authorised.
HMRC is required to take a decision regarding the outcome of a UKIMS application within 120 days days. Applications are typically processed much faster with an average turnaround time of 12 to 15 working days. HMRC must undertake a range of checks to verify eligibility for the scheme and, in certain cases, seek further information from businesses. We do not collect data on the time taken for traders to complete UKIMS applications.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South and Mid Down)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the value inclusive of accrued interest is of assets frozen by the UK that belonged to the Libyan Qaddafi regime.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Office for Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), part of HM Treasury published in its 2023-2024 Annual Review that £13.4 billion in assets relating to the Libya sanctions regime have been reported as frozen as of September 2023. This is an aggregated total of all entities and individuals listed on the Consolidated List of Financial Sanctions Targets.
Interest accrued on frozen assets is still subject to an asset freeze to be frozen immediately by the person in possession or control of them, but there is no change in ownership of the frozen funds or economic resources, and they are not transferred to HM Treasury. As there is no obligation for a relevant institution to inform OFSI when it has credited interest to a frozen account, OFSI does not hold this information.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South and Mid Down)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether there will be a Barnett consequential for Northern Ireland following the roll out of free breakfast clubs in England.
Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
At Phase 1 of the 2025 Spending Review, over £30 million was allocated to the Department for Education to fund breakfast clubs in 2025-26. The Barnett formula was applied in the usual way to changes in the Department for Education’s Delegated Expenditure Limit (DEL) budget.
The resulting Barnett consequentials were included in the Northern Ireland Executive’s £18.2 billion settlement for 2025-26, which includes an additional £1.5 billion through the operation of the Barnett formula.
This is the largest spending review settlement in real terms since devolution and ensures that the Northern Ireland Executive continues to receive over 24% more per person than equivalent UK Government spending in the rest of the UK, including the 2024 restoration financial package.
The Block Grant Transparency publication breaks down all changes in the devolved governments’ block grant funding from the 2015 Spending Review up to and including Main Estimates 2023-24. The most recent report was published in July 2023. An update to Block Grant Transparency to include Autumn Budget 2024 changes will be published in due course:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/block-grant-transparency-july-2023
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South and Mid Down)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the final report by the Complaints Commissioner entitled The FCA’s handling of Safe Hands Plans Limited, published on 11 March 2025, if she will make recommendations to the Financial Conduct Authority based on that report.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
I am sympathetic to all the Safe Hands customers who have lost money, following the collapse of the firm in 2022.
Once concerns were raised about the funeral plan market, the Government legislated to bring all pre-paid funeral plan providers and intermediaries within the regulatory remit of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). This made it illegal to sell pre-paid funeral plans without authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority, protecting 1.6 million customers and their families.
The FCA has published its response to the Financial Regulator Complaints Commissioner. The FCA has been clear that it is not possible to immediately act on every piece of anonymous intelligence they receive.
We support the FCA's handling of Safe Hands, and it is clear that they acted reasonably in this case, as they had a clear plan to properly scrutinise Safe Hands’ business during the authorisations process. As the Commissioner acknowledges, there is also no evidence that alternative action from the FCA would have led to different outcomes for Safe Hands customers.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South and Mid Down)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of extending the orchestra tax relief to include choirs.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government supports the creative industries, including orchestras, through funding and through the tax system. Orchestra Tax Relief (OTR) provides tax relief on productions costs and provided £33 million of support in 2022-23.
To qualify for OTR, a concert must be performed by a group of at least 12 instrumentalists. The voice is not considered to be an instrument. However, orchestra concerts with a vocal element are eligible for the relief providing that the orchestra also contains at least 12 instrumentalists, not including the voice, and the instrumentalists are the primary focus. These rules help ensure OTR fulfils its objective of supporting and incentivising orchestra concerts specifically.
Whilst the Government has no plans to extend OTR to choirs, all taxes are kept under review. The Chancellor makes announcements on tax at fiscal events in the context of the overall public finances.