Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 12 June 2025 to Question 58290 on Banking Hubs: Market Towns, whether her Department plans to review LINK’s public transport travel time and cost criteria to account for the availability of public transport in rural areas.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Government recognises that cash continues to be used by millions of people across the UK, including those who may be in vulnerable groups or face challenges using alternative payment methods. The Government also understands the importance of face-to-face banking to communities and high streets across the UK, including those in rural communities, and is committed to championing sufficient access for all as a priority.
In September 2024, The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which is independent of Government, introduced regulatory rules for access to cash.
The FCA’s rules require LINK to consider a range of factors in their assessments which will account for challenges in cash access faced by market towns. This includes travel times to nearby cash facilities and local population demographics, including the levels of vulnerability and the number of elderly people within the community.
However, it is important to note that the FCA’s rules, and the LINK assessment criteria which it oversees, pertain only to access to cash, and the FCA has no power to require LINK to consider a community's access to banking needs. Any decision to change LINK’s independent assessment criteria to consider access to banking is a matter for LINK and the financial services sector.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 12 June 2025 to Question 58290 on Banking Hubs: Market Towns, if her Department will commission an independent review of LINK’s access to cash assessment frameworks adequacy to serve rural areas.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Government recognises that cash continues to be used by millions of people across the UK, including those who may be in vulnerable groups or face challenges using alternative payment methods. The Government also understands the importance of face-to-face banking to communities and high streets across the UK, including those in rural communities, and is committed to championing sufficient access for all as a priority.
In September 2024, The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which is independent of Government, introduced regulatory rules for access to cash.
The FCA’s rules require LINK to consider a range of factors in their assessments which will account for challenges in cash access faced by market towns. This includes travel times to nearby cash facilities and local population demographics, including the levels of vulnerability and the number of elderly people within the community.
However, it is important to note that the FCA’s rules, and the LINK assessment criteria which it oversees, pertain only to access to cash, and the FCA has no power to require LINK to consider a community's access to banking needs. Any decision to change LINK’s independent assessment criteria to consider access to banking is a matter for LINK and the financial services sector.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of LINK’s banking hub criteria for market towns.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Government understands the importance of face-to-face banking to communities and high streets in market towns and across the UK, and is committed to championing sufficient access for all as a priority. This is why the Government is working closely with industry to roll out 350 banking hubs across the UK. The UK banking sector has committed to deliver these hubs by the end of this Parliament. Over 230 hubs have been announced so far, and over 160 are already open.
Where a branch closure is announced or a community has submitted a cash access assessment request, LINK, the independent industry coordinating body responsible for making access to cash assessments, assesses a community’s access to cash needs. LINK will recommend appropriate solutions where it considers that a community requires additional cash services, such as a banking hub or deposit service.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) rules require LINK to consider a range of factors in their assessments which will account for challenges in cash access faced by market towns. For example, firms are required to consider the actual travel times and costs to reach cash access facilities and identify gaps in provision where these are unreasonable, which may be particularly the case in rural areas.
LINK also takes into account local population demographics and levels of vulnerability within the community. The criteria also assess whether there is likely to be seasonal demand for cash, which may be the case in certain market towns. These considerations help to ensure the specific needs of a community are assessed.
Any decisions on changes to LINK’s independent assessment criteria are a matter for LINK and the financial services sector.
Alternative options to access everyday banking services can be via telephone banking, through digital means such as mobile or online banking, and via the Post Office. The Post Office Banking Framework allows personal and business customers to withdraw and deposit cash, check their balance, pay bills and cash cheques at 11,500 Post Office branches across the UK.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to Answer of 4 March 2025 to Question 33135 on Agriculture and Business: Inheritance Tax, what the evidential basis is that the alternative clawback mechanism to the proposed changes to agricultural property relief and business property relief would raise much less revenue.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Government believes its reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief from 6 April 2026 get the balance right between supporting farms and businesses, and fixing the public finances. The reforms reduce the inheritance tax advantages available to owners of agricultural and business assets, but still mean those assets will be taxed at a much lower effective rate than most other assets. Despite a tough fiscal context, the Government will maintain very significant levels of relief from inheritance tax beyond what is available to others and compared to the position before 1992.
A “clawback” would mean inheritance tax would only be due if the relevant assets are sold within a specified time period after a death. Introducing this mechanism, as some have suggested, could mean some of the wealthiest estates pay less inheritance tax compared to the proposed reforms. The Government disagrees with suggestions that a clawback would raise the same revenue as the reforms being introduced from 6 April 2026; it would raise much less, which would mean raising taxes elsewhere or lowering public spending. It would also add complexity to the tax system and continue to attract the very wealthiest to tax plan since beneficiaries could hold onto the assets over the specified clawback period just to escape the tax.
In accordance with standard practice, the Government does not publish internal modelling of alternative tax proposals that are not Government policy.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to Answer of 11 March 2025 to Question 35636 on Agriculture and Business: Inheritance Tax, if her Department will publish its modelling for an alternative clawback mechanism for agricultural property relief and business property relief.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Office for Budget Responsibility only certifies costings for the Exchequer impact of the Government’s tax policies. In accordance with standard practice, the Government does not publish modelling of alternative tax proposals that are not Government policy.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to reduce business rates for the owners and tenants of buildings containing market stalls.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Business rates are paid by the occupiers of commercial properties. In the event a property is unoccupied, the property owner is liable for the property’s business rates bill.
To deliver our manifesto pledge, we intend to introduce permanently lower tax rates for qualifying retail, hospitality, and leisure (RHL) properties, including those on the high street, from 2026-27. Eligibility for these new RHL multipliers will broadly mirror the scope of the existing RHL relief scheme.
During the interim period, for 2025-26, RHL businesses will receive a 40 per cent relief on their business rates up to a cash cap of £110,000 per business.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether she plans to increase VAT to 20% for private hire passenger fares outside of London.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Private hire vehicle services provided by VAT-registered businesses are, and always have been, subject to the standard rate of VAT (20%).
The Government is carefully considering the wide range of views shared through last year's consultation on the VAT Treatment of Private Hire Vehicles.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the Government has made an assessment of the potential impact of applying VAT to private school fees on local sports clubs.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Government is committed to breaking down barriers to opportunity, ensuring every child has access to high-quality education, which is why we have made the tough decision to end tax breaks for private schools. This will raise revenue for essential public services, including investing in the state education system
This VAT change will not impact pupils with most acute additional needs where these can only be met in private schools, as determined by an Education and Health Care Plan in England, and equivalent processes in other nations.
Where pupils are placed in a private school because their needs cannot be met in the state sector, and they have their places funded by their Local Authority, the Local Authority will be able to reclaim the VAT they incur on these pupils’ fees. In Northern Ireland, it will be the Education Authority who fund placements in private schools and will be able to reclaim the VAT in this way.
The government will publish a Tax Information and Impact Note setting out the impacts of the changes, including the equalities impacts, alongside the Finance Bill.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the efficiency and effectiveness of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme in its assessment of mortgage mis-selling complaints.
Answered by Bim Afolami
The Financial Services Compensation Scheme may be able to pay compensation to customers who have lost money as a result of bad mortgage advice or been mis-sold mortgage endowments. The FSCS can only pay compensation if the firm, broker, or advisor that the customer dealt with was regulated and has failed. Any complaints about live regulated firms should be addressed to the Financial Ombudsman Service. For mortgage claims, the FSCS carries out its compensation function within rules set by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), but is operationally independent of them. The FSCS publishes an annual report and levy class statements, including for the home finance intermediation levy class. The FSCS’s certified accounts and audit report are provided to HM Treasury each year, and copies are laid before Parliament.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many and what proportion of appeals to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme have resulted in an over-turned decision.
Answered by Bim Afolami
The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) is the UK’s compensation scheme of last resort and pays compensation to consumers when authorised financial firms fail. If a claimant is unhappy with the FSCS’s decision on their claim, they can launch an appeal which will be reviewed by someone independent of the original decision. The FSCS operates a 2-stage internal appeal process. In the financial year 2022-2023, the FSCS made just under 97,000 claims decisions, and 1,695 customers asked the FSCS to review its decisions. The FSCS does not publish data on the proportion of appeals that are upheld or rejected at each stage. Customers who are unhappy at the end of the FSCS’s internal appeal process have the option of seeking a Judicial Review of the FSCS’s decision on their claim.