Asked by: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing in line with inflation the rate per mile that self-employed people can claim on their vehicle usage.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
Self-employed people can get tax relief for fuel and other business motoring expenses using either the simplified mileage rate or by claiming capital allowances and actual expenses. The mileage rate is an easier way of calculating the costs of owning and running a vehicle for tax purposes, intended to balance accuracy with administrative simplicity for businesses by using an average. This means that the rate will be more appropriate for some drivers than for others. The simplified mileage rate is designed to reflect vehicle running costs including fuel, depreciation, servicing, insurance, and Vehicle Excise Duty and in setting the rate the Government uses information from a variety of sources.
As with all taxes, simplified mileage rates are kept under review and any changes are considered and announced by the Chancellor at fiscal events.
Asked by: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what dedicated funds have been made available to (a) HM Revenue & Customs, (b) Border Force and (c) Trading Standards to prevent the sale of illegal tobacco in each financial year since 2018-19.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The Government has dedicated significant resource to tackling illicit tobacco and has set out its approach to doing so in successive strategies dating back to 2000. These strategies have been highly effective in reducing the illicit trade for cigarettes from 22% in 2000-01 to 9% in 2020-21, and for hand-rolling tobacco from 61% to 34% in the same period.
Funding for tackling illegal tobacco is typically drawn from wider budgets and activities aimed at tackling illicit trade. However, at Budget 2020 the Government announced further resources to combat illicit tobacco, dedicating £1million over two years to ‘Operation CeCe’, a joint initiative between HMRC and National Trading Standards to tackle illicit trade at a local level.
Asked by: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many people have been prosecuted in relation to the manufacture, distribution and sale of illegal tobacco products by (a) HM Revenue & Customs, (b) Border Force and (c) Trading Standards in each financial year since 2018-19.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The Government does not maintain a central record of the total number of people prosecuted for manufacturing, distributing or selling illicit tobacco products, or a breakdown of prosecutions by agency.
HMRC does publish annual data on the number of arrests, positive charging decisions1 and convictions2 as a result of its criminal investigations relating to tobacco. This can be found in its Outputs for tackling tobacco smuggling report. The figures since 2018-19 are below. Figures for 2021-22 are not yet available.
Financial Year | Arrests | Positive charging decisions | Convictions |
2018-19 | 140 | 330 | 278 |
2019-20 | 215 | 203 | 261 |
2020-21 | 61 | 115 | 43 |
1During the life of a prosecution case a decision is made as to whether to charge a suspect or not.
2Convictions do not necessarily relate to prosecutions started in this period, since outcomes to case will depend on the time taken for them to be processed through the judicial system.
Asked by: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the potential (a) excise duty and (b) VAT lost due to the sale of illegal tobacco products in each financial year since 2018-19.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) publishes annual estimates for the excise duty and VAT lost due to the sale of illegal tobacco as part of its Measuring Tax Gaps report. The figures since 2018-19 are below. Figures for 2021-22 are not yet available.
Financial Year | Tax gap – duty and VAT (£ billion (bn)) | Excise Duty Gap (£bn) | VAT gap (£bn) | Percentage tax gap (Excise duty only) | Percentage tax gap (duty and VAT) |
2018-2019 | £2.1 | £1.6 | £0.5 | 15% | 15% |
2019-2020 | £2.3 | £1.8 | £0.5 | 17% | 15% |
2020-2021 | £2.5 | £1.9 | £0.5 | 16% | 17% |
N.B. In cases where Excise duty gap (£bn) and VAT gap (£bn) do not sum to the total tax gap (£bn), this is due to rounding them individually to the nearest £100m.
Asked by: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much excise duty and VAT the Government collected from the sale of tobacco products in each financial year since 2018-19.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
Data regarding receipts for tobacco duty can be found in the publication HMRC tax receipts and National Insurance contributions for the UK. Refer to column Y in the statistics table.
An extract is provided below showing Tobacco duties since 2018 to 2019. Figures are in £millions.
Financial year | Tobacco Duties (£m) |
2018 to 2019 | 9,290 |
2019 to 2020 | 8,804 |
2020 to 2021 | 9,964 |
2021 to 2022 | 10,278 |
With regards to VAT receipts on tobacco products, the information is not available. HMRC does not hold information on VAT revenue from specific products or services, including VAT on tobacco products. This is because businesses are not required to provide figures at a product level within their VAT returns, as this would impose an excessive administrative burden.
Asked by: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of implementing the recommendations of the Mobile homes: The impact of a change in the maximum park home sale commission report, published on 16 June 2022.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The government commissioned a report looking at the issue and we are grateful to the authors. Ministers are actively considering this complex issue. We will publish a response in due course. We are committed to reforming the sector to deliver better value and security for residents.
Asked by: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to increase the supply of older people’s housing.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
My department works closely with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to provide capital funding to incentivise supply. This includes my department's £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme which includes delivery within the programme for new supported housing for older, disabled and other vulnerable people.
DHSC's Adult Social Care Reform White Paper reiterated the Government's commitment to the important role of supported housing. This included the continuation of the Care and Support Specialised Housing (CASSH) Fund.
In February 2022, the Levelling Up White Paper announced a taskforce on older people's housing to explore how we can improve the choice of and access to housing options for older people. We continue to work in partnership with DHSC colleagues and with housing, health and social care stakeholders to look at how we can further support the growth of a thriving older people's housing sector.
We note the recommendations in Professor Mayhew's recent review alongside contributions from other stakeholders.
I would be happy to meet with my Rt. Hon. Friend to discuss this important issue.
Asked by: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of implementing the recommendations of the Mayhew Review on future-proofing retirement living.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
My department works closely with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to provide capital funding to incentivise supply. This includes my department's £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme which includes delivery within the programme for new supported housing for older, disabled and other vulnerable people.
DHSC's Adult Social Care Reform White Paper reiterated the Government's commitment to the important role of supported housing. This included the continuation of the Care and Support Specialised Housing (CASSH) Fund.
In February 2022, the Levelling Up White Paper announced a taskforce on older people's housing to explore how we can improve the choice of and access to housing options for older people. We continue to work in partnership with DHSC colleagues and with housing, health and social care stakeholders to look at how we can further support the growth of a thriving older people's housing sector.
We note the recommendations in Professor Mayhew's recent review alongside contributions from other stakeholders.
I would be happy to meet with my Rt. Hon. Friend to discuss this important issue.
Asked by: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many incidents of fraud were referred to UK Finance in each year since 2016 inclusive.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects information on the number of fraud offences that the NFIB refer to police forces for investigation and on the investigative outcomes recorded by the police.
This data is published annually as part of the Home Office’s ‘Crime Outcomes in England and Wales’ publication. This provides information on all fraud cases referred to the police for investigation and their outcomes, but we cannot separately identify those reported from different bodies in the data that we hold centrally. The latest available data for the year ending March 2022 can be found be here:
Crime outcomes in England and Wales 2021 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of cases referred to UK Finance resulted in a police investigation in the last 12 months.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects information on the number of fraud offences that the NFIB refer to police forces for investigation and on the investigative outcomes recorded by the police.
This data is published annually as part of the Home Office’s ‘Crime Outcomes in England and Wales’ publication. This provides information on all fraud cases referred to the police for investigation and their outcomes, but we cannot separately identify those reported from different bodies in the data that we hold centrally. The latest available data for the year ending March 2022 can be found be here:
Crime outcomes in England and Wales 2021 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)