Asked by: Emma Little Pengelly (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many hours of childcare recipients of tax free childcare apply for by the proportion of applicants that apply for those hours.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
This information is not available since hours of childcare used is not collected as part of the Tax-free Childcare application process.Asked by: Emma Little Pengelly (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to increase the affordability of childcare for low income families.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
This Government is committed to supporting families across the income distribution with the cost of childcare and we will be spending almost £6 billion in 2019/20 on childcare support – more than ever before.
Families on low incomes are able to access a range of childcare support including:
Asked by: Emma Little Pengelly (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he has taken to support dual income families where both parents work full time hours.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
This Government is committed to supporting families with the cost of childcare and we will be spending almost £6 billion in 2019/20 on childcare support – more than ever before.
Families where both parents work more than 16 hours per week at the National Living Wage and earn less than under £100,000 per year are eligible for a range of support including:
Asked by: Emma Little Pengelly (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what financial support is in place for single working parents.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
The Government is committed to supporting working families with the cost of living.
We are committed to rolling out Universal Credit (UC), which is designed to make work pay. Working parents on UC are benefitting from the Budget 2018 work allowance increase, meaning they can keep up to an extra £635 of their income each year.
The Government is spending almost £6 billion in 2019-20 on childcare support – more than ever before. This includes free childcare hours in England, support under tax credits and Universal Credit, and Tax Free Childcare.
Working parents will also be benefitting from the Income Tax Personal Allowance increase to £12,500, and the National Living Wage increase to £8.21.
Asked by: Emma Little Pengelly (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of the level at which the earnings threshold cap has been set for the eligibility for tax-free childcare.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer given by my predecessor on 30 April 2019 under UIN’s 245642, 245643, 245644 and 246449.
Asked by: Emma Little Pengelly (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the Tax-Free Childcare statistics, published March 2019, for what reasons 60 per cent of open accounts are not being used.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
Due to the way Tax-Free Childcare is linked to 30 hours free childcare, a large number of Tax-Free Childcare accounts for 3 and 4 years olds are opened but not used to pay a childcare provider. This happens because a child who has a 30 hours account opened, will automatically have a Tax-Free Childcare account opened as well, if their parents are eligible. The reason for this feature of the service is to ensure a smooth customer journey for families signing up for 30 hours free childcare, so that they have a Tax-Free Childcare account ready for use when their child is no longer eligible for 30 hours free childcare.
Additionally, when a Tax-Free Childcare account is opened for a child, of any age, accounts will be opened for their siblings if their details are also entered during the application.
Asked by: Emma Little Pengelly (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the cost is to the public purse of tax free childcare per hour.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
Tax-Free Childcare (TFC) provides support to parents of 20% of their childcare costs, up to a cap of £2000 per child per year.
The official statistics publication ‘Tax-Free Childcare Statistics’ (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/tax-free-childcare-statistics-june-2019) contains a monthly breakdown of Government costs.
The Government does not collect data on the number of hours of childcare being subsidised by TFC. It is therefore not possible to calculate the cost to the Government of TFC per hour of childcare subsidised.
Asked by: Emma Little Pengelly (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate his Department has made of the revenue lost to the public purse as a result of fraudulent tax free childcare claims in each of the last three years; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
HMRC’s compliance activity for Tax-Free Childcare – which involves targeted risk campaigns plus additional exercises looking at the particulars of randomly selected parents - suggests non-compliance rates, and thus revenue losses to the public purse, continue to remain negligible.
Whilst no formal estimates have been as yet been produced of actual losses, all of HMRC’s compliance findings to date reveal no real evidence of deliberate fraud, but what mistakes have been detected relate instead to parent error.
Asked by: Emma Little Pengelly (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment has been made of the effect of the closure of Childcare Vouchers to new entrants on working families; and if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of re-opening that scheme.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
Tax-Free Childcare (TFC) was rolled out throughout 2017 and 2018 to replace childcare vouchers. TFC is better targeted than childcare vouchers, as it broadens access to childcare to all families who meet the eligibility criteria, whether they are an employee or self-employed and regardless of who their employer is. It is also fairer, because support is paid per child rather than per parent, so lone parent households get the same support as those with more than one parent.
The Government has no plans to re-open the childcare vouchers scheme in the future.
Asked by: Emma Little Pengelly (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the Tax-Free Childcare statistics, published March 2019, for what reasons the proportion of families in Northern Ireland using tax-free childcare remained unchanged between 2017-18 and 2018-19.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
The proportion of used TFC accounts which are in Northern Ireland remained unchanged between 2017/18 and 2018/19 as the increase in the number of used accounts in Northern Ireland was proportional to the increase in the number of used accounts across the United Kingdom.
As shown in Table 5 of the most recent Tax-Free Childcare (TFC) Statistics release (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/tax-free-childcare-statistics-june-2019) the number of used TFC accounts in Northern Ireland increased by 1,700 between 2017/18 and 2018/19.