Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will take steps to remove business rates for early years providers.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Business rates are a broad-based tax on the value of non-domestic properties, including nurseries.
To protect small businesses, the Government has frozen the small business multiplier for 2025-26. Taken together with Small Business Rates Relief, this intervention ensures that over a million properties will be protected from inflationary increases.
More broadly, in 2026-27, we expect to provide over £9.5 billion for the early years entitlements. We are investing over £1 billion more in the early years entitlements this year compared to 2025-26, to deliver a full year of the expanded entitlements, and an above inflation increase to entitlements funding rates.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many full-time equivalent staff in her Department are tasked with tackling the use of fake license plates.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
It is not possible to provide the full-time equivalent number of staff who deal with number plate issues. The staff involved do not exclusively work on number plate related issues and also investigate other types of cases.
While on road enforcement of number plates issues is a matter for the police, the information in the table below shows the number of occasions where members of the public contacted the DVLA about correspondence, fines or penalties that they have been received from third parties about the use of vehicles which they do not recognise or accept responsibility for in the last five years.
However, it is important to note that the misuse of a registration number or number plate is just one of the possible reasons why someone might receive such correspondence. A proportion of these cases will have been made as a result of errors, for example where a vehicle registration number has been entered incorrectly.
Calendar Year | Number of reports |
2021 | 7,430 |
2022 | 7,837 |
2023 | 9,848 |
2024 | 10,461 |
2025 | 11,402 |
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many fake license plates were recorded in each of the last five years.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
It is not possible to provide the full-time equivalent number of staff who deal with number plate issues. The staff involved do not exclusively work on number plate related issues and also investigate other types of cases.
While on road enforcement of number plates issues is a matter for the police, the information in the table below shows the number of occasions where members of the public contacted the DVLA about correspondence, fines or penalties that they have been received from third parties about the use of vehicles which they do not recognise or accept responsibility for in the last five years.
However, it is important to note that the misuse of a registration number or number plate is just one of the possible reasons why someone might receive such correspondence. A proportion of these cases will have been made as a result of errors, for example where a vehicle registration number has been entered incorrectly.
Calendar Year | Number of reports |
2021 | 7,430 |
2022 | 7,837 |
2023 | 9,848 |
2024 | 10,461 |
2025 | 11,402 |
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what is the total cost to the public purse of money owed to HMRC in the form of unpaid (a) VAT and (b) corporation tax accrued since July 2024.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Our debt management workforce is deployed flexibly across all taxes to ensure efficient collection of debts owed and are not allocated to specific taxes. It is therefore not possible to provide a separate figure for staff working solely on VAT or corporation tax recovery.
HMRC publishes information on VAT and corporation tax losses in its Annual Report and Accounts, of which the most recent can be found here: HMRC Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25.
HMRC does not hold a separate breakdown of companies dissolved with unpaid VAT or corporation tax.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many companies owing unpaid (a) VAT and (b) corporation tax have been dissolved since July 2024.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Our debt management workforce is deployed flexibly across all taxes to ensure efficient collection of debts owed and are not allocated to specific taxes. It is therefore not possible to provide a separate figure for staff working solely on VAT or corporation tax recovery.
HMRC publishes information on VAT and corporation tax losses in its Annual Report and Accounts, of which the most recent can be found here: HMRC Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25.
HMRC does not hold a separate breakdown of companies dissolved with unpaid VAT or corporation tax.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many full time equivalent HMRC staff are working on unpaid (a) VAT and (b) corporation tax recovery.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Our debt management workforce is deployed flexibly across all taxes to ensure efficient collection of debts owed and are not allocated to specific taxes. It is therefore not possible to provide a separate figure for staff working solely on VAT or corporation tax recovery.
HMRC publishes information on VAT and corporation tax losses in its Annual Report and Accounts, of which the most recent can be found here: HMRC Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25.
HMRC does not hold a separate breakdown of companies dissolved with unpaid VAT or corporation tax.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many full-time equivalent staff in his Department have been employed for the purpose of making social media content in each of the last three years.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Due to the difficulty of disaggregating the number of staff who are employed to produce social media content from staff who are employed to work on broader digital communications, it is not possible to report exact figures in response to this question.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners have been released in error from HM Prison Peterborough since July 2024.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Releases in error have been increasing for several years and are another symptom of the prison system crisis inherited by this Government. On 11 November, the Deputy Prime Minister announced a five-point national action plan to reduce releases in error, which includes strengthening release checks across prisons and an independent review led by Dame Lynne Owens.
Totals for releases in error, including a breakdown by releasing prison (or Prisoner Escort Custody Services), are published each July in the HMPPS Annual Digest, available via HMPPS Annual Digest, April 2024 to March 2025 - GOV.UK(opens in a new tab), and provide data up to March 2025.
The Government is determined to fix the issue of mistaken releases and ensure the public is properly protected.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners have been released in error from North Sea Camp Prison since July 2024.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Releases in error have been increasing for several years and are another symptom of the prison system crisis inherited by this Government. On 11 November, the Deputy Prime Minister announced a five-point national action plan to reduce releases in error, which includes strengthening release checks across prisons and an independent review led by Dame Lynne Owens.
Totals for releases in error, including a breakdown by releasing prison (or Prisoner Escort Custody Services), are published each July in the HMPPS Annual Digest, available via HMPPS Annual Digest, April 2024 to March 2025 - GOV.UK(opens in a new tab), and provide data up to March 2025.
The Government is determined to fix the issue of mistaken releases and ensure the public is properly protected.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to support heritage assets in South Holland and the Deepings constituency.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
This Government takes our responsibility to the built historic environment seriously. For this year alone, my Department has committed nearly £60 million of funding for heritage, including £15m for Heritage at Risk.
Funding is administered by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s Arms-Length-Bodies. Since 1994, The National Lottery Heritage Fund has awarded £5,540,760 to 110 projects in South Holland and the Deepings.
Historic England has also administered funding in South Holland and the Deepings. This has gone towards projects such as the 2024 - 2027 Lincolnshire Extended Urban Survey, which worked to underpin better decision making, archaeological understanding and design in the county’s towns, and received £211,000.
There are currently 12 heritage assets on the Heritage at Risk Register in the area, and Historic England are actively engaged with all of them. These include conservation areas, listed buildings, and scheduled monuments.
The Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme gives grants towards VAT paid on repairs and renovations to the nation’s listed sites of worship across the UK. Since August 2022, 41 claims have been paid to 15 Listed Places of Worship based in the South Holland local authority area to a value of £78,125.6.