Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the recovery of historic tax credit overpayments is taken into account in the Government's projected revenue and expenditure plans.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The expenditure forecast for personal tax credits, published by the Office for Budget Responsibility, is produced on a cash basis. As such it includes cash movements such as recoveries of previous overpayments.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent discussions he has had with (a) Cabinet colleagues and (b) stakeholders on reforming pension tax relief.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade
Treasury Ministers and officials have meetings with a wide variety of organisations in the public and private sectors as part of the process of policy development and delivery. Details of ministerial and permanent secretary meetings with external organisations on departmental business are published on a quarterly basis and are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmt-ministers-meetings-hospitality-gifts-and-overseas-travel
At Summer Budget 2015 the Government conducted a consultation on whether there was a case for reforming pensions tax relief to strengthen incentives to save, and offer savers greater simplicity and transparency, or whether it would be best to keep with the current system. Responses to the consultation indicated that there was no clear consensus for reform at that time, and so at Budget 2016 the Government announced that it would not be making fundamental reform to the pensions tax system.
As ever, the Government keeps all aspects of the tax system under review, as part of the annual Budget process, and in the context of the wider public finances.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an estimate of the number of people expected to be affected by the Pensions Increase (Review) Order 2022 (S.I. 2022/333) in the 2023/24 financial year.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Section 59 of the Social Security Pensions Act 1975 (as amended) read with the Pensions (Increase) Act 1971 (as amended) provides for public service pensions to be increased annually by the same percentage as State additional pensions (State Earnings Related Pension and State Second Pension). State additional pensions were increased by 3.1 per cent from April 2022, in line with the increase in the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) in the 12 months from September 2020 to September 2021. From 11 April 2022, most public service pensions in payment were also increased by the same percentage, with pro-rata increases for those in payment for less than a year.
The Pensions Increase (Review) Order 2022 covers “official pensions,” which are those pensions listed in Schedule 2 of the Pensions (Increase) Act 1971. This covers most public service pensions. There are, however, also a small number of other schemes (which are not official pensions) where the benefits are increased by analogy with official pensions under the rules applying to those schemes.
Official pensions are increased as specified within the annual Pension Increase (Review) Orders, and the Order applies to a pension that began before or during the 12 months before the date that the Order commences and where the pension satisfies a condition qualifying for pension increases to be paid. The pensions increase is therefore usually paid to recipients aged 55 and over, or those aged less than 55 who are in receipt of a survivor's pension, or a pension paid on account of ill health.
Pensions increases also apply to pensions in deferment, although the entitlement arises only when the pension comes into payment and the recipient satisfies a qualifying condition. Members currently accruing further pension benefits in schemes covered by these indexation provisions will also be entitled to receive increases under Pension Increase Orders and some who retire in future, particularly in the next few years, might be entitled to increases under the Pensions Increase Order 2022.
Those affected by the Pension Increase (Review) Order 2022 in the 2022/23 financial year are therefore likely to equal:
Table 2 of the last ONS Occupational Pension Schemes Survey, assessing data up to 2019, estimated that there were then 5.3 million public sector pensions in payment; 4.7 million deferred public sector pensions; and 6.6 million active members of public sector pension schemes. However, this data will also include a small proportion of members who, for example, have defined contribution pensions and are not in arrangements necessarily affected by the Pension Increase (Review) Order 2022.
In addition to those noted above, some private sector scheme rules provide that the defined benefit pensions of some or all members will increase in line with increases applying to official pensions.
A further Pensions Increase (Review) Order will be made for the 2023/24 financial year, which would allow for movements in prices since the previous assessment based on September 2021 CPI.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will publish data on the proportion and number of child benefit payment recipient families by gender of claimant for each year from 2009 to 2018 inclusive.
Answered by Simon Clarke
HMRC publishes counts of Child Benefit claimants by gender in the Child Benefit Statistics: annual release publication. For ease, this has been recreated below with additional columns summarising these counts as a proportion of their respective totals for each year from 2009 to 2018 inclusive.
Gender of claimants in receipt of Child Benefit payments, 2009 to 2018 | |||||||
| Total | Number of claimants | Number of claimants as a % of total | ||||
| Female | Male | Unavailable | Female | Male | Unavailable | |
August 2009 | 7,769,880 | 7,065,405 | 668,790 | 35,690 | 91% | 9% | 0% |
August 2010 | 7,841,675 | 7,078,790 | 700,695 | 62,190 | 90% | 9% | 1% |
August 2011 | 7,884,760 | 7,077,800 | 724,505 | 82,450 | 90% | 9% | 1% |
August 2012 | 7,920,495 | 7,063,860 | 753,685 | 102,950 | 89% | 10% | 1% |
August 2013 | 7,550,265 | 6,692,210 | 749,345 | 108,710 | 89% | 10% | 1% |
August 2014 | 7,461,675 | 6,569,085 | 772,265 | 120,325 | 88% | 10% | 2% |
August 2015 | 7,416,800 | 6,484,145 | 799,205 | 133,450 | 87% | 11% | 2% |
August 2016 | 7,396,355 | 6,416,240 | 833,655 | 146,455 | 87% | 11% | 2% |
August 2017 | 7,376,965 | 6,350,900 | 866,485 | 159,580 | 86% | 12% | 2% |
August 2018 | 7,325,845 | 6,412,685 | 872,470 | 40,685 | 88% | 12% | 1% |
Source: Child Benefit Statistics: annual release, August 2021
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will publish data on the proportion and number of Child Benefit families that have opted out of receiving child benefit payment by gender of the registered claimant for each year between 2009 and 2018 inclusive.
Answered by Simon Clarke
Information on the number of Child Benefit claimants that have opted out of receiving payment is only available from 2013 when claimants were given the option of opting out of payment following the introduction of the High Income Child Benefit Charge (HICBC) in 2013. Below is a table summarising the counts of Child Benefit claimants that opted out of receiving payment and their respective proportion of the total for each year from 2013 to 2018 inclusive.
Gender of Child Benefit claimants that have opted out of receiving payment, 2013 to 2018 | |||||||
| Total | Number of claimants | Number of claimants as a % of total | ||||
| Female | Male | Unavailable | Female | Male | Unavailable | |
August 2013 | 396,980 | 344,135 | 34,400 | 18,445 | 87% | 9% | 5% |
August 2014 | 475,740 | 410,580 | 43,120 | 22,040 | 86% | 9% | 5% |
August 2015 | 491,695 | 420,970 | 47,530 | 23,195 | 86% | 10% | 5% |
August 2016 | 503,585 | 427,785 | 51,735 | 24,070 | 85% | 10% | 5% |
August 2017 | 515,920 | 434,955 | 56,070 | 24,895 | 84% | 11% | 5% |
August 2018 | 545,340 | 456,085 | 63,140 | 26,115 | 84% | 12% | 5% |
Source: Child Benefit Statistics: annual release, August 2021
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many employees' sick pay HMRC has reimbursed via rebate under the Coronavirus Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme since 26 May 2020.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
The Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) Rebate Scheme supports employers with the cost of SSP paid to employees for absences related to COVID-19 for up to two weeks per employee. The scheme is available to UK based businesses with fewer than 250 employees.
From 26 May 2020 to 31 December 2021, the first SSP Rebate scheme paid out £88 million in support to 124,000 employers for SSP costs relating to 675,000 employees. Data from the current scheme will be released after the scheme ends.