Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of reforming the trust fund system to help ensure they cannot be used by people to evade sanctions associated with the invasion of Ukraine.
Answered by Gareth Davies - Shadow Minister (Business and Trade)
The UK has imposed the most severe package of financial sanctions in history in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and working with partners, we are isolating Russia from the global economy.
In December 2022, the Government introduced new sanctions which specifically prohibit UK persons from providing trust services to or for the benefit of designated individuals or persons connected with Russia.
In addition, last year the government introduced the Register of Overseas Entities through the Economic Crime, Transparency and Enforcement Act. The register collects information on the beneficial owners of trusts who own UK property. This information, alongside that in HMRC’s register of UK trusts is made available to UK law enforcement agencies. This gives law enforcement the tools it needs to identify and prevent criminals who may wish to use trusts operating in the UK to launder money.
The Government will continue to keep our response under review to ensure that as illicit finance threats evolve, our ability to respond effectively does too.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 16 January 2023 to Question 120082 on Housing: Disability and with reference to VAT Notice 701/7 section 9.2, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential effect of that Guidance notice on disabled people accessing VAT relief for self-installed home disability adaptions.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
HM Treasury and HM Revenue & Customs consider equalities impacts as part of the tax policy making process, including the impacts that policy has on people with disabilities.
Although there are no plans to change the scope of the VAT relief for items designed solely for use by a disabled person, all taxes and relevant guidance are kept under review.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has had recent discussions with HMRC on the potential merits of extending the deadline for retrospective payment of National Insurance contributions necessary to access the full entitlement of state pension benefits.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
On 7 March 2023, the Government issued a Written Ministerial Statement (WMS) announcing that the Voluntary Class 2 and 3 National Insurance contributions (NICs) deadline will be extended from 5 April 2023 to 31 July 2023 for this year only. This will provide individuals more time to fill gaps in their National Insurance record, which could help them increase the amount they receive in State Pension.
A link to the WMS can be found at https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2023-03-07/hcws608.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of establishing a judge-led inquiry on the Financial Conduct Authority's handling of Blackmore Bonds plc.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade
The Government considers it is important that there are appropriate mechanisms in place to ensure the financial services regulators are accountable for all aspects of their performance.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is responsible for ensuring consumer protection for a broad range of financial services products and HM Treasury works closely with the FCA to maintain a strong and safe financial system. However, the FCA does not have power to investigate a firm that is unauthorised and not carrying out any regulated activities.
Blackmore Bond Plc was not authorised by the FCA and the sale of the ‘mini-bond’ product it offered was not an activity regulated by the FCA. The Government therefore has no plans to establish a judge-led inquiry into the FCA’s handling of the collapse of Blackmore Bond plc.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of extending access to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme to all those affected by the collapse of the Blackmore Bond plc.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade
The Government considers it is important that there are appropriate mechanisms in place to ensure the financial services regulators are accountable for all aspects of their performance.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is responsible for ensuring consumer protection for a broad range of financial services products and HM Treasury works closely with the FCA to maintain a strong and safe financial system. However, the FCA does not have power to investigate a firm that is unauthorised and not carrying out any regulated activities.
Blackmore Bond Plc was not authorised by the FCA and the sale of the ‘mini-bond’ product it offered was not an activity regulated by the FCA. The Government therefore has no plans to establish a judge-led inquiry into the FCA’s handling of the collapse of Blackmore Bond plc.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the potential benefits of extending VAT relief for home disability adaptions to self-installed adaptions when a recognised need for the home modifications has been identified by an individual's professional support team.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
VAT has been designed as a broad-based tax on consumption, and the twenty per cent standard rate applies to the vast majority of goods and services. While there are exceptions to the standard rate, these have always been strictly limited by both legal and fiscal considerations.
One such exception is the VAT relief for items which have been designed solely for use by a disabled person, which benefit from a VAT zero-rate. Self-installation of home modifications which meet this criteria will benefit from the relief, however any general purpose items will be subject to VAT at the standard rate. This boundary ensures that goods and services which are objectively the same do not have different VAT treatments, enabling HMRC and businesses to determine with confidence what is, and is not, eligible for VAT relief.
Given this, although the Government keeps all taxes under review, there are no plans to change the VAT treatment of self-installed home adaptations
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to require that assets which (a) are held by and (b) have been transferred (i) to, (ii) from and (iii) within a trust must always have a clearly defined beneficial owner.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade
The Government recognises that the vast majority of trusts are set up for legitimate reasons. However, there is also a risk that trusts can be used to conceal the beneficial ownership of assets which can facilitate money laundering.
The Trust Registration Service (TRS) is a register of the beneficial ownership of trusts. First set up in 2017, new rules introduced in 2020 extended the scope of the TRS to UK and some non-UK trusts, with some specific exclusions, regardless of whether or not the trust is liable to pay any tax. Trustees of UK resident express trusts were required to register their trusts with the TRS by September 2022, and this information can be made available to law enforcement and other relevant parties on a case-specific basis.
The UK continues to monitor risks associated with trusts: from 16 December 2022, there are additional restrictions on providing trust services to or for the benefit of designated persons and persons connected with Russia. Providing trust services ‘for the benefit of’ a person includes where the person is a beneficiary, is a potential beneficiary, or may be reasonably expected to obtain a significant financial benefit from the trust or similar arrangement. These prohibitions support wider government aims for sharpening sanctions and closing loopholes which could be used to avoid sanctions.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has had recent discussions with HM Revenue and Customs on estimates of how many people in Scotland are affected by the loan charge.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Following the Independent Loan Charge Review, HMRC estimates that around 9,500 individuals will be removed from the scope of the Loan Charge. This analysis is not broken down by location.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate his Department have made with HMRC on the number of people in Scotland that have reached settlements for breaches of IR35 rules.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
For compliance activity relating to the off-payroll working rules, HMRC does not maintain records that provide a breakdown by specific regions or nations of the UK.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will allocate additional resources to the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation to ensure that sanctions linked to the war in Ukraine can be fully enforced as the number of individuals and organisations on the sanctions list increases.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade
In Jan-22, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) had 42.15 active staff. OFSI is expecting to at least double in size over the next financial year to around 100 staff. These roles will be at all levels of the organisation across both London and Darlington.