Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department plans to take steps to tackle employers that refuse to furlough employees who were on payroll on 19 March 2020 and have subsequently left that employment, in circumstances where those former employees have contacted their former employers for support through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Government guidance makes clear that, as long as eligible for the scheme, employers can re-employ employees they made redundant or who stopped working for them on or after 19 March 2020, put them on furlough, and claim for their wages through the scheme from the date on which they furloughed them.
The Government encourages all those firms affected by coronavirus to do the right thing for their employees. The scheme will help firms keep millions of people in employment by covering most employers’ wage costs. Firms should receive their grant within 6 working days of submitting claims.
The Government is also supporting those on low incomes who need to rely on the welfare system, through a significant package of temporary measures which benefit new and existing claimants. The measures include a £20 per week increase to the Universal Credit (UC) standard allowance and Working Tax Credit basic element, and nearly £1 billion of additional support for renters through increases to the Local Housing Allowance rates for UC and Housing Benefit claimants.
Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for what reason the Expanded Retail Discount Scheme excludes bureaux de change premises.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Government has provided enhanced support to the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors through business rates relief given the direct and acute impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on those sectors.
While financial services providers are excluded from business rates relief, a range of further measures to support all businesses, including those not eligible for the business rates holiday, has also been made available.
For example, the Government has launched the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme to help firms continue to keep people in employment, the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme offering loans of up to £5 million for SMEs through the British Business Bank, and the deferral of VAT payments for this quarter.
Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the income of long term supply teaching staff employed (a) through agencies and (b) by schools, acadamies or local authorities will have their income protected under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Government seeks, as far as possible, to protect people’s jobs and incomes. This is an unprecedented jobs retention scheme and the Government has been working hard to set out further details on the scheme. The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme is open to any individual who was on an employer’s PAYE payroll on 19 March 2020. Full details can be found in the guidance available at www.gov.uk/guidance/claim-for-wage-costs-through-the-coronavirus-job-retention-scheme and www.gov.uk/guidance/work-out-80-of-your-employees-wages-to-claim-through-the-coronavirus-job-retention-scheme, which provides answers to these questions.
Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department plans to force employers to enrol in the Government scheme for the public purse to provide 80 per cent of an employee's salary if they are unable to work as a result of covid-19.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Government will make sure it protects, as far as possible, people’s jobs and incomes. This is an unprecedented jobs retention scheme and the Government has been working hard over the last week to set out further details on the scheme. Full details can now be found in the guidance available at: http://www.gov.uk/guidance/claim-for-wage-costs-through-the-coronavirus-job-retention-scheme.
Employers whose operations have been severely affected by coronavirus are encouraged to use the scheme instead of making staff redundant. Under the scheme, employers can put employees on temporary leave and the Government will pay them cash grants of 80% of their wages up to a cap of £2,500 per month, providing they keep the individual employed. As set out in the guidance, the scheme does cover workers on flexible or zero-hour contracts.
Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what plans his Department has to extend the financial support offered to businesses for PAYE and National Insurance contributions to include VAT payments; and what assessment he has made of the effect of VAT liability on cashflow where customers enter administration.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Chancellor has announced an unprecedented economic response to support businesses. This includes deferment of VAT payments. No VAT-registered business will have to make a VAT payment alongside their VAT return to HMRC from now through to June. Businesses will have until the end of the financial year to pay these bills. This is a direct injection of more than £30bn of cash to businesses, equivalent to 1.5% of GDP.
Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the financial effect on the bingo industry of the change to bingo duty in 2014.
Answered by Simon Clarke
No assessment has been made. Bingo Duty was reduced to 10% at Budget 2014 in recognition of bingo halls’ benefits to local community life.
Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent estimate he has made of the rate of gross profit tax levied from (a) the Football Pools and (b) bookmakers; what the rationale is for applying the same rate of duty to the Football Pools and bookmakers; and what recent assessment he has made of reducing the reducing the rate of the Pools Betting Duty to 10 per cent.
Answered by Simon Clarke
No recent estimate has been made. Pool Betting Duty raises around £5m and General Betting Duty raises around £600m in revenue for the Exchequer per annum.
The rate of duty on the Football Pools and Bookmakers was set by the previous Government. Reducing Pool Betting Duty to 10% is likely to have a negligible effect on the Football Pools, but could put revenue at risk particularly through incentivising switching of products from fixed odds bets to pooled bets. HM Treasury however keeps all taxes under active review.
Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the cost to the public purse of was decommissioning projects in the (a) Northern, (b) Central and (c) Southern North Sea in (i) 2016 and (ii) 2017; and what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse in each North Sea region in 2018.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We do not hold information that provides a breakdown of decommissioning tax relief by region, or a historic breakdown by year.
HM Revenue and Customs currently estimate that the total cumulative Exchequer cost of decommissioning tax relief (comprised of Petroleum Revenue Tax, Ring Fence Corporation Tax and Supplementary Charge) will be £24 billion out to 2062/63.
Further details can be found in the recently published statistics of government revenues from UK oil and gas: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/721314/Statistics_of_government_revenues_from_UK_oil_and_gas_production__June_2018__.pdf.