Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will hold discussions with (a) travel operators and (b) representatives in the devolved Administrations on potential merits of reducing air passenger duty.
Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Air Passenger Duty (APD) is the UK Government’s principal tax on the aviation sector, since tickets are VAT free and aviation fuel incurs no duty. Its primary objective is to ensure that airlines make a fair contribution to the public finances. There are different rates according to a passenger's class of travel and the distance of their journey.
As with all taxes, the Government keeps APD under review and any changes are announced by the Chancellor at fiscal events.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of permitting the sale of duty free goods to people on flights between Northern Ireland and EU airports.
Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The government is committed to preserving frictionless movement of people and goods between Northern Ireland and Ireland. This is important to communities across Northern Ireland.
Enabling duty-free shopping between Northern Ireland and the EU (of which Ireland is a member) without also introducing border controls on the island of Ireland would lead to significant distortions of trade as well as a significant revenue loss for both UK and Ireland. This is because it would create a legal route for unlimited amounts of alcohol and tobacco to flow into the UK market duty-free.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, What steps he is taking to reduce HMRC's response times to (a) individuals and (b) financial representatives.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
HMRC aims to improve customer service for both individuals and financial representatives through quicker and easier online services. For individuals, HMRC continues to add new services into the HMRC app and online offering, for example adding Child Benefit in 2023. For financial representatives, HMRC have created a new performance dashboard for agents to track claims/requests and inform their clients.
Supporting those customers who can do so to move online will allow HMRC to improve telephone and post responses for customers with the most complex queries or those who are unable to access digital services.
HMRC responds to the significant majority of calls to their Agent Dedicated Line within 10 minutes.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what next steps his Department plans to take following its consultation on the UK Green Taxonomy.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The 2023 Green Finance Strategy set out the Government’s commitment to deliver a UK Green Taxonomy. This will support the quality of standards, labels and disclosures used in the industry for green finance activity. We expect to consult on the Taxonomy in Autumn 2023.
Following the consultation, we will analyse responses and provide a government response in accordance with Cabinet Office consultation principles, with a view to finalising the Taxonomy.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he plans to hold further discussions with representatives of banking institutions on the adequacy of the level of interest rates applied to savings accounts.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The pricing of products, including savings accounts, is a commercial matter for firms in which the Government does not intervene.
However, the Chancellor has made clear his expectation that savers benefit from rising interest rates. He has tasked the Financial Conduct Authority to report later this month on how the savings market is supporting savers to benefit from higher interest rate, and will consider any potential next steps following the completion of this report.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate his Department has made of how many people who did not pay income tax in 2021/22 will pay basic rate income tax in 2023/24.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
HMRC’s Income Tax liabilities statistics publish a breakdown of the number of individual Income Tax payers by marginal rate in Table 2.1.
These figures are based on the 2019 to 2020 survey of personal incomes, projected in line with Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) economic determinants.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate his Department has made of how many people who paid income tax in 2021/22 will pay higher rate income tax in 2023/24.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
HMRC’s Income Tax liabilities statistics publish a breakdown of the number of individual Income Tax payers by marginal rate in Table 2.1.
These figures are based on the 2019 to 2020 survey of personal incomes, projected in line with Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) economic determinants.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 29 June to Question 191011 on Bank Cards Fraud, what estimate he has made of when UK Finance will publish data on payment industry fraud for 2022; and if he ask UK Finance to publish that information broken down by month.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
UK Finance published their 2023 Annual Fraud Report, containing data on fraud levels from January to December 2022, on 10th May this year.
In addition to their annual data, UK Finance publish a half yearly report on fraud levels from January to June of every year. The 2023 report can be expected in the Autumn this year.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent progress his Department has made with Fair4All Finance on rolling out a no-interest loan scheme in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
At Budget 2021, HM Treasury announced £3.8 million of funding to pilot a No Interest Loan Scheme (NILS), designed to help vulnerable consumers across all four nations of the UK who would benefit from affordable credit to meet unexpected costs.
This pilot is being run by Fair4AllFinance, in conjunction with their partners. Fair4AllFinance are continuing to roll out the pilot more widely and HM Treasury are working with them to meet our shared ambition to launch a pilot site in Northern Ireland.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will hold discussions with the Financial Conduct Authority on levels of transparency in financial institutions over decisions to close (a) personal and (b) business accounts.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government recognises the importance of transparency with regards to consumers and businesses’ access to financial services products. The Government has recently consulted on the adequacy of the existing balance of rights and obligations between payment service users and providers in relation to users’ contracts and rules on termination, as part of its review of the relevant regulations – the Payment Services Regulations 2017. The Government is currently reviewing responses to determine if the legislative change is warranted, and will engage the Financial Conduct Authority as the competent authority where appropriate, on the basis of these findings. The Government is committed to bringing a Written Ministerial Statement before the House to report on the Government’s findings on this matter, and to set out if any changes to regulation are necessary, ahead of its formal response to the Review.