Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Education on promoting the uptake of the Tax-Free Childcare scheme.
Answered by Simon Clarke
Take up of Tax-Free Childcare has continued to rise despite the pandemic. Most recent take up levels (September 2021) are 316,000 families for 371,000 children, compared to 308,000 families using childcare for 364,000 children in June 2021. HMRC continue to carry out communications and marketing activity which has proven to raise awareness and understanding of the scheme.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the end of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme on the disability employment gap.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme was designed as a temporary measure to support businesses while restrictions were in place. As the economy has reopened, the jobs market has recovered, vacancies are at record highs, and the success of the Government’s vaccination programme has allowed us to lift almost all restrictions. That is why it is right that the Government continues to wind down its temporary pandemic support, while continuing to support businesses to invest in the recovery and supporting people into new jobs.
The employment rate gap between people with a disability and those without is 28.1 percentage points, and the Government is committed to reducing the disability employment gap. To support disabled people into work, as part of the Spending Review, the Government confirmed that it is providing specialised disability employment support worth over £1.1 billion over the next three years. This includes an additional £156 million over the Spending Review period for health and disability support with a focus on additional work coaches. This is alongside the Work and Health Programme, which will continue to provide personal support to disabled people to find jobs that match their employment and health needs, and the Access to Work scheme which will continue to help cover the costs of workplace adaptations, special equipment and travel.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to Answer of 15 September to Question 45291, how many (a) high-street bank and (b) building society branches that were in operation in Enfield North for each of the past 10 years.
Answered by John Glen
The Government recognises the continued importance of access to over-the-counter financial services. However, HM Treasury does not make direct assessments of banks’ or building societies’ branch networks.
Decisions on opening and closing branches are a commercial issue for banks and building societies, but firms are expected to engage closely with the Financial Conduct Authority to carefully consider the impact of planned branch closures on their customers’ everyday banking and cash access needs and consider possible alternative access arrangements.
Alternative options for access include the Post Office. The Post Office Banking Framework allows 95% of business and 99% of personal banking customers to deposit cheques, check their balance and withdraw and deposit cash at 11,500 Post Office branches in the UK.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he plans to respond to the correspondence addressed to the previous Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office dated 10 August 2021 from the Hon. Member for Enfield North on the Government's international aid cuts and the UK’s Special Drawing Rights allocation, reference FC8050.
Answered by John Glen
A response to the relevant correspondence was issued on 12 October 2021.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent estimate he has made of the potential impact of the end of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme on the number of jobs that will be retained.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme was designed as a temporary, economy-wide measure to support businesses while widespread restrictions were in place. Providing support to the end of September strikes the right balance between continuing to support the economy as it opens up and ensuring incentives are in place to get people back to work as demand returns.
This approach has worked; at the start of this crisis, unemployment was expected to reach 12 per cent or more. It is now expected to peak at about half of that level. That means almost 2 million fewer people out of work than previously feared. The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Report (MPR) forecasts that the unemployment rate will on average be around 4.7% across Q3 and Q4, a downwards revision from the May MPR which projected unemployment to peak at 5.4% in Q3 and below the OBR Spring forecast (6.5% in the final quarter of 2021).
Moreover, the labour market is recovering rapidly with reopening of the economy in line with the roadmap. Flash HMRC PAYE data for July showed the number of paid employees increased for the eighth consecutive month. The unemployment rate stood at 4.7% in the 3 months to June 2021, down from a peak of 5.2% in the 3 months to December 2020.
Vacancies in the three months to July 2021 continued to rise, reaching record levels and are now up 18% (rising by 142,000 to 953,000) on the three months to February 2020.
In order to support people into work, as part of its comprehensive Plan for Jobs, the Government has announced the £2 billion Kickstart scheme which will create hundreds of thousands of new, fully subsidised jobs for young people, and the new three year Restart programme, which will provide intensive and tailored support to over one million unemployed Universal Credit claimants across England and Wales and help them find work.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent discussions he has had with the Financial Conduct Authority on free access to the UK cash network.
Answered by John Glen
The Government remains closely engaged with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in developing its cash access proposals, including through the Joint Authorities Cash Strategy Group, which provides a forum for the public bodies to formally co-ordinate respective approaches to access to cash. The Group is chaired by HM Treasury and attended by the Bank of England, Payments Systems Regulator and the FCA.
The Government has published a consultation on proposals for protecting access to cash for the long term. The Government proposes that the FCA becomes the lead regulator for oversight of the retail cash system with responsibility for monitoring and enforcing cash access requirements. Under the proposals, the FCA would be responsible for ensuring that facilities provide reasonable access in order to qualify for meeting geographic requirements. The FCA would be expected to take into account factors that reflect existing standards of cash access, including the appropriateness of facilities for vulnerable users, such as costs for end users, security, hours of availability and accessibility.
The consultation is open until 23 September 2021 and is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/access-to-cash-consultation
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on funding for the Government’s HIV Action Plan.
Answered by Steve Barclay
The Government remains fully committed to achieving zero new HIV transmissions in England by 2030.
In March 2020, we announced that the HIV prevention drug PrEP would be routinely available across England. New funding of £11m was made available in 2020/21 and an additional £23m was added to the public health grant in the current financial year.
The Department of Health and Social Care is currently developing a new Sexual and Reproductive Health Strategy and an HIV Action Plan, both of which are planned for publication later this year.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent discussions he has had with the Minister for Women and Equalities to help ensure an equitable economic recovery for women from the Covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - Leader of HM Official Opposition
The Chancellor speaks to his Cabinet colleagues frequently.
Women have benefitted from an unprecedented package of support introduced since March 2020 to help businesses and individuals.
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) continues through to the end of September, with employees receiving 80% of their salary for hours not worked, up to £2,500 per month. Across the UK, where it was possible to link the data, 1.72 million women were on furlough at 30 April 2021 compared with 1.67 million men.
The Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) also continues until September 2021. The fifth and final grant will include a turnover test in order to ensure that the most generous support - a grant worth 80% of three months’ average trading profits, up to £7,500 - is targeted at those who need it the most. As of 6 June 2021, the scheme has received over 2.6 million claims from self-employed women across the four rounds of grant.
To continue to support people on low incomes during the pandemic, the Government has extended the temporary £20 per week uplift to the Universal Credit (UC) standard allowance to the end of September, with similar support for eligible Working Tax Credit (WTC) claimants. The majority of Universal Credit claimants are women: 53% in April 2021.
The increase to Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates for Universal Credit and Housing Benefit in cash terms in 2021-22 has also been maintained, an increase which was worth an extra £600 on average in 2020-21 for over 1.5 million households.
As there is a higher proportion of single women (52%) claiming housing support in the private rental sector with a shortfall than single men (18%) or couples (30%), increasing LHA rates to the 30th percentile of rates in the market, is more likely to benefit single women than single men.
While the long-term impacts of the pandemic on the labour market are still emerging, there has been a larger fall in employment among men compared to women so far. Since December-February quarter 2020, the female employment rate has fallen by 0.5 percentage points, while the male employment rate has fallen by 2.4 percentage points. This is in contrast to other G7 countries: between Q4 2019 and Q4 2020 Canada has seen a larger fall in the female employment rate, and France, Italy, Japan and the US have seen relatively similar falls for both men and women (within 0.2 percentage points).
The gender pay gap is also at its lowest level since records began, falling to a record low of 15.5% in April 2020, from 17.4% last year. For full-time employees, the gap is also at a record low of 7.4% in April 2020, down from 9.0% in April 2019. The Office for National Statistics found that evidence from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) and the Labour Force Survey (LFS) suggests that coronavirus factors did not have a notable impact on the gender pay gap in 2020.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what support he plans to make available to small businesses to adopt the new cashback provisions outlined in the Financial Services Act 2021.
Answered by John Glen
As part of the Financial Services Act 2021 the Government made legislative changes to support the widespread offering of cashback without a purchase by shops and other businesses. The Government’s view is that cashback without a purchase has the potential to be a valuable facility to cash users, and to play an important role in the UK’s cash infrastructure.
The Government’s legislative change to enable cashback without a purchase will take effect this month of June 2021. Last month, UK Finance announced the formation of a new Access to Cash Action Group, and confirmed that the banking and finance industry is already working collaboratively with retailers to make a success of this new opportunity.