Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many and what proportion of calls to the HMRC MP hotline (a) were made in total, (b) were not answered, (c) involved the caller being on hold for more than 10 minutes and (d) were terminated following the caller being on hold for more than 10 minutes in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
HMRC publishes monthly and quarterly performance data on GOV.UK
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmrc-monthly-performance-reports
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmrc-quarterly-performance-updates
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps (a) his Department and (b) the Financial Conduct Authority are taking to (i) investigate the collapse of Blackmore Bond plc and (ii) ensure consumer protections on related matters.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade
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.
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. Where problems fall outside the FCA’s statutory remit, they assist other agencies and regulators wherever they can. In the case of Blackmore Bond, the FCA passed relevant information to the City of London Police.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how long on average appeals to the Valuation Office Agency have taken from date of application to final result, in each of the last five years for which figures are available.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
There are two forms of formal challenge (appeal) for Council Tax and Non-Domestic Rating disputes. A formal challenge submitted to the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) and appeals to the independent Valuation Tribunal (VT). Legislation permits a taxpayer to appeal to VT when they disagree with the VOA’s decision on the Council Tax band of their domestic property, or Rateable Value of their non-domestic (business) property.
The VOA publish annual statistics on the number of challenges received, for both domestic and non-domestic properties, including the outcomes, broken down by region. You can view them here:
Domestic properties, ‘Challenges and changes: financial year summaries March 2022’, Table_CTCAC1.3: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/council-tax-challenges-and-changes-in-england-and-wales-march-2022
Non-domestic properties, see ‘Non-domestic Rating: Checks, Challenges and Changes, England’ spreadsheets for each year, refer to tables citing Challenges: www.gov.uk/government/collections/non-domestic-rating-challenges-and-changes
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many appeals to the Valuation Office Agency were successful in (a) England, (b) London and (c) Enfield in each of the last five years.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
There are two forms of formal challenge (appeal) for Council Tax and Non-Domestic Rating disputes. A formal challenge submitted to the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) and appeals to the independent Valuation Tribunal (VT). Legislation permits a taxpayer to appeal to VT when they disagree with the VOA’s decision on the Council Tax band of their domestic property, or Rateable Value of their non-domestic (business) property.
The VOA publish annual statistics on the number of challenges received, for both domestic and non-domestic properties, including the outcomes, broken down by region. You can view them here:
Domestic properties, ‘Challenges and changes: financial year summaries March 2022’, Table_CTCAC1.3: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/council-tax-challenges-and-changes-in-england-and-wales-march-2022
Non-domestic properties, see ‘Non-domestic Rating: Checks, Challenges and Changes, England’ spreadsheets for each year, refer to tables citing Challenges: www.gov.uk/government/collections/non-domestic-rating-challenges-and-changes
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the NHS will receive financial support for energy costs beyond 31 March 2023.
Answered by John Glen
Public sector bodies, including the NHS, have benefitted from a discount on wholesale gas and electricity through the Energy Bill Relief Scheme (EBRS) over the winter period. The outcome of a HMT-led review to determine support for UK non-domestic energy consumers after March 2023 will be published by the end of 2022.
The Autumn Statement confirmed additional funding for the NHS of £3.3bn in each of the next two financial years in recognition of the additional cost pressures the service is facing, including from energy costs. The Chief Executive of the NHS, Amanda Pritchard, has said that the new funding being made available to the NHS is sufficient to fulfil NHS key priorities and shows the government is serious about its commitments to prioritise the NHS.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an estimate of the level of tax revenues that have been received from the benefit-in-kind tax applied to private health screenings for employees in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
HMRC publishes information on taxable benefits in kind here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/taxable-benefits-in-kind-and-expenses-payments-statistics
Table 4.5 of the 2019 publication provides the number of recipients, taxable value and Income Tax and National Insurance liability of private medical and dental benefits in kind, covering tax year 2009 to 2010 to tax year 2017 to 2018. This publication can be found in the National Archives here: https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20191203084326/https:/www.gov.uk/government/statistics/number-of-recipients-and-amounts-of-taxable-benefits-by-type-of-benefit
In 2020 the scope of HMRC’s taxable benefits in kind statistics was restricted to company cars (and company car fuel) only. This decision was made because the increased uptake of payrolling had substantially reduced the completeness of the data on which statistics for other benefits were based.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of trends of the level of former employees being denied furlough payments for which they are eligible by employers.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
Information is not available on the trends of former employees who did not receive furlough payments. HMRC publishes statistics on the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS); the latest release was published on 16 December 2021: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/coronavirus-job-retention-scheme-statistics-16-december-2021.
CJRS was available to all employers with a Pay As You Earn (PAYE) system and to all employees on PAYE, regardless of their employment contract. The key eligibility criteria was that employees had to be on payroll the day before the scheme was announced, so 19 March 2020 for the first and second iterations of CJRS, 30 October 2020 for the third iteration of CJRS, and 2 March 2021 for the fourth iteration of CJRS. Employers also had to have previously notified HMRC, via a PAYE Real Time Information (RTI) submission, about a payment of earnings for that employee.
CJRS grants covered any type of employment contract and employers could claim the grant for the hours their employees and workers on payroll were not working, calculated by reference to their usual hours worked in a claim period. Flexible furlough meant employers could work for any amount of time and any work pattern, while still being able to claim CJRS grant for the hours not worked with reference to hours the employee would usually have worked in that period.
However, employers could not claim for any days from 1 December 2020 during which the furloughed employee was serving a contractual or statutory notice period for the employer. This included people serving notice of retirement or resignation. Normal redundancy rules and protections would have applied in these circumstances.
Ultimately, it was for the employer to decide whether to offer furlough to their employees, and claim the CJRS grant, according to the needs of their business. The employer was under no obligation to access the scheme.
If an employee believes that the employer did make a claim on their behalf, but did not pass this on to the employee, they should tell HMRC.
Reports of COVID-19 scheme abuse can be made to HMRC via their online fraud reporting tool here: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs/contact/report-fraud-to-hmrc.
Calls can also be made anonymously and free of charge to report suspected fraudulent activity to the COVID Fraud Hotline on 0800 587 5030.