Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the tax on (a) capital gains and (b) dividends to the same rate as income tax.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government is committed to ensuring that the UK tax system encourages investment whilst also taxing income from capital sources like dividends and Capital Gains fairly.
As set out in the Government’s response to the Office of Tax Simplification's report on Capital Gains Tax (CGT) on 30 November 2021, substantial reforms to CGT rates and allowances would involve a number of wider policy trade-offs and so careful thought must be given to the impact that they would have on taxpayers, as well as any additional administrative burden on HMRC.
The Government keep all aspects of the tax system under review to ensure it is simple and efficient.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much their Department spent on hospitality in (a) 2021, (b) 2022 and (c) 2023.
Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
We do not routinely publish this data, as has been the case under successive administrations. All Business Units within HM Treasury have a responsibility to keep official hospitality costs as low as possible and demonstrate good value for money.
Details of ministerial and senior official hospitality are published on a quarterly basis, and are available on GOV.UK
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact on tax receipts of the introduction of an annual wealth tax.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The UK system is designed to ensure among other things that the richest in our society pay their fair share on their wealth and assets, with the tax system taxing wealth across many different economic activities, including acquisition, holding, transfer and disposal of assets and income derived from assets. These tax levers generate substantial revenue, including Inheritance Tax revenues of £7 billion, Capital Gains Tax revenues of £18.1 billion and property transaction taxes of £17.3 billion in 2022-2023.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact on tax receipts if the rate of capital gains tax rate was equal to the rate of income tax.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
As set out in the Government’s response to the Office of Tax Simplification's report on Capital Gains Tax (CGT) on 30 November 2021, substantial reforms to CGT rates and allowances would involve a number of wider policy trade-offs and so careful thought must be given to the impact that they would have on taxpayers, as well as any additional administrative burden on HMRC.
The Government will continue to keep the tax system under review to ensure it is simple and efficient.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the average time was for new businesses to have their VAT registration processed in each of the last five years.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
HMRC publishes monthly and quarterly performance data on GOV.UK
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmrc-monthly-performance-reports
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmrc-quarterly-performance-updates
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much his Department spent on taxi cabs for (a) ministers and (b) civil servants in each of the last three years.
Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
HM Treasury’s taxi cabs spend for 2019-20 to 2021-22 can be found in the table below
Financial Year | Spend |
2019/20 | £81,250.84 |
2020/21 | £29,276.24 |
2021/22 | £42,529.55 |
The provision of our taxi contract does not differentiate between ministers and officials, so we do not have that level of detail.
Taxis are defined as a car available with a driver for hire, including a minicab.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much his Department spent on first class train travel for (a) ministers and (b) civil servants in (i) 2020, (i) 2021 and (iii) 2022.
Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
HMT has spent the below totals on first class travel for (a) ministers & (b) civil servants in (i) 2020, (ii) 2021 & (iii) 2022. The figures below only contains first class travel booked through our travel booking portal.
| (a) Ministers | (b) Civil Servants |
(i) 2020 | £0 | £0 |
(ii) 2021 | £295 | £6,570 |
(iii) 2022 (Jan-Sep) | £106 | £3,834 |
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much his Department has spent on (a) agency workers and (b) agency retainer fees in (i) 2020, (ii) 2021 and (iii) 2022.
Answered by Alan Mak - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade) (jointly with the Cabinet Office)
A - Agency workers:
Agency workers (more commonly referred to as “Contingent Labour” or “Temporary Workers”) are subject to a Cabinet Office controls framework to ensure robust governance of spending in this area. This framework can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/contingent-labour-spend-control
Commentary on Contingent Labour usage, if applicable, is available in departmental annual reports: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/annual-reports-and-accounts-for-central-government-departments
The Crown Commercial Service provides two frameworks specifically for the supply of Contingent Labour which are used by central government departments. These are:
RM3749 - Public Sector Resourcing https://www.crowncommercial.gov.uk/agreements/rm3749, which provides a managed service for departmental use including low supplier margins, regular pay rate benchmarking, comprehensive tracking and reporting of contingent labour assignments, full time sheeting and approvals technology and onboarding, contracting and payroll services.
RM6160 - Non Clinical Temporary and Fixed Term Staff https://www.crowncommercial.gov.uk/agreements/RM6160, which provides access to a range of generalist, specialist and niche contingent labour agencies offering a wide range of suppliers, maximum margins, free transfer to permanent after 12 weeks and onboarding, contracting and payroll services.
Use of these frameworks provides robust governance, visibility, value for money and flexibility in meeting departmental contingent labour needs.
HM Treasury has spent the following on agency workers:
Year | Value (£) |
2020 | 783,224 |
2021 | 1,029,471 |
2022 (up to June) | 289,177 |
B - Agency retainer fees:
We have interpreted your reference to agency retainer fees as the fees charged at the commencement of the provision of a search recruitment service, this is only applicable when recruiting for a permanent or fixed term post.
Agency retainer fees are not applicable to the contingent labour market.
HM Treasury has spent the following on agency retainer fees:
Year | Value (£) |
2020 | 6,300 |
2021 | 117,038 |
2022 | 165,851 |
The vast majority of HM Treasury’s agency retainer fees relate to the setup of the UK Infrastructure Bank.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much their Department has spent on air travel for (a) Ministers and (b) officials in (i) 2020, (ii) 2021 and (iii) 2022.
Answered by Alan Mak - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade) (jointly with the Cabinet Office)
The air travel spend for HMT in each calendar year respectively is as follows: 2020: £343,886.61, 2021: £126,748.95 and 2022: £332,222.72. We are unable to provide the split between Ministers and Officials as the information is not held in that format in our systems.
However, Ministers international commercial air travel is captured in departmental quarterly transparency returns and published on gov.uk at the following location: Transparency data HMT ministers' meetings, hospitality, gifts and overseas travel: 1 April to 30 June 2021 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much their Department has spent on advertising in (a) 2020, (b) 2021 and (c) 2022.
Answered by Alan Mak - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade) (jointly with the Cabinet Office)
HM Treasury spent the following on advertising over the last 4 financial years:
Financial Year | Cost |
2019-20 | £114,864 |
2020-21 | £327,838 |
2021-22 | £134,774 |
2022-23 (up to June 22) | £51,901 |