Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Bexhill and Battle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what fiscal steps he is taking to support the growth of the life sciences sector.
Answered by Gareth Davies - Shadow Minister (Business and Trade)
Life sciences is one of the government’s priority growth sectors. In May, the Chancellor announced a bold new policy package backed by over £650m funding, reaffirming the government’s commitment to supporting a thriving life sciences industry.
This follows a number of initiatives announced at Spring Budget that will support the sector, including £10m extra funding for our medicines regulator the MHRA, full expensing of capital expenditure and reforms to R&D tax credits.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Bexhill and Battle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the conclusions of the report by Oxford Economics entitled Assessing the impact of tax-free shopping in the UK, published in November 2022.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
Following the initial withdrawal of VAT-free shopping in November 2020, the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) published their assessment of the withdrawal of the schemes. Their assessment showed that withdrawing the scheme would raise a significant amount of revenue and have a limited behavioural effect on decisions to visit, or spend, in the UK
The Treasury has reviewed the Oxford Economics report and remains confident in the OBR’s analysis
In particular, the findings of the Oxford Economics report are underpinned by an assumption that introducing VAT-free shopping will generate an additional 1.6 million visitors to the UK.
We do not recognise these figures. The OBR, using a higher than usual price elasticity of demand to account for VAT-free shopping being targeted at luxury goods, put this figure at 20,000-30,000 for non-EU visitors, which would imply a figure of 60,000-80,000 of total visitors (EU and non-EU). That is about 5% of the report’s 1.6 million estimate. Reflecting this difference in estimates of additional visitors could lead to their report overstating the potential extra revenue by around £1 billion.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Bexhill and Battle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the Government’s business rates policy in supporting small and medium-sized businesses.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Small Business Rate Relief (SBRR) is available to businesses with a single property with a rateable value below £15,000. Properties under £12,000 receive 100 per cent relief, and there is tapered support available to properties valued up to £15,000.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities publishes statistics annually (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-non-domestic-rates-collected-by-councils) which show that over a third of properties in England (700,000) already pay no business rates at all as a result of 100 per cent SBRR, with an additional 51,000 in the taper.
The eligibility criteria for SBRR ensures that it effectively targets the smallest businesses where help is needed most and provides good balance between support and cost to the Exchequer.
At Autumn Statement 2022, the Government announced a package of changes and tax cuts worth £13.6 billion over the next five years. This includes new measures to reduce the burden of business rates on firms, including a freeze in the multiplier for 2023-24, extended relief for high street businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sector, an exchequer funded transitional relief scheme, and targeted support for small businesses.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Bexhill and Battle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to improve the UK’s financial services sector regulatory framework.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade
The Chancellor provided a detailed written statement to the House in December 2022 on the government’s Edinburgh Reforms to improve the regulatory framework for financial services (HCWS425).
This builds on the Future Regulatory Framework (FRF) Review, which was established by the government to determine how the financial services regulatory framework should adapt to the UK’s new position outside of the European Union (EU), and to ensure the framework is fit for the future.
The outcomes of the FRF Review are now being delivered through the Financial Services and Markets Bill, a key piece of legislation that allows us to seize the opportunities of EU Exit and secure the UK’s position as a global financial hub.
The Government has also published an ambitious plan to enact the repeal of retained EU law in financial services and build a smarter financial services regulatory framework as part of the Edinburgh Reforms.
Amongst other areas, the document set out that the Government will split areas of regulation into tranches, prioritising those areas including those with the biggest potential to deliver improvements to UK economic growth. The government aims to make significant progress on tranches one and two of the programme by the end of 2023 and will ensure that there are opportunities for the full range of stakeholders to engage and to feed in views as the programme is delivered. More detail can be found online at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-a-smarter-financial-services-framework-for-the-uk
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Bexhill and Battle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to help the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors recover from the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
In December, Government announced a £1bn package of support for businesses impacted by the Omicron variant. This included grants worth up to £6,000 for businesses in the hospitality and leisure sectors.
These measures are just the latest action we have taken to safeguard businesses and jobs and are in addition to:
Thanks to the Government’s decisive action to implement balanced and proportionate measures in response to the Omicron variant, Cabinet has decided to return to Plan A in England. This means the economy will get back to operating freely and businesses can recover more quickly.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Bexhill and Battle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to encourage businesses to invest.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Under the super-deduction, from April 2021 until the end of March 2023, companies can claim a 130% capital allowance on qualifying plant and machinery investments. It is the biggest two-year business tax cut in modern British history.
At Budget, the Government announced that the temporary £1 million Annual Investment Allowance level would be extended until the end of March 2023.
These measures provide more upfront support to help businesses across the UK invest and grow.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Bexhill and Battle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to encourage regional growth across the UK.
Answered by Simon Clarke
The Government published its Levelling Up White Paper earlier this month. It sets out our missions as part of a decade long plan to see the potential of every corner of the United Kingdom fulfilled.
It builds on the funding allocated at the Spending Review, for example boosting investment in skills training with a total of £3.8 billion in skills by 2024-25, transforming local transport networks with £5.7 billion investment in five-year consolidated transport settlements for eight city regions in England, including Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region, and supporting local infrastructure through the first round of the £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund, which saw 12 places in the North West receive £232 million in funding.
It also provides further detail on the £2.6 billion UK Shared Prosperity Fund, helping people to access new opportunities in places in need.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Bexhill and Battle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what progress his Department has made on supporting people to upskill and change career paths.
Answered by Simon Clarke
The Treasury is working to support people to upskill and change career paths.
At the Spending Review, young people and adults benefitted from the biggest long-term settlement for post-16 education in England since 2015. The government is investing a total over the Parliament of £3.8bn in skills by 2024-25, equivalent to a cash increase of 42% (26% in real terms) compared to 2019-20.
Spending Review 2021 delivered on the government’s commitment to invest an additional £500m per annum (£2.5bn total) in adult skills through the National Skills Fund, including continuing to offer free Level 3 courses for adults aged over 19 in high value subjects. This substantially boosts retraining opportunities for adults and will level up basic skills.
We are also quadrupling the current annual scale of skills bootcamps over the SR period. Employers work with providers to deliver short courses to develop occupational skills, with participants guaranteed a job interview on completion. Bootcamps offer an opportunity for all adults to reskill and change career paths.
SR21 also announced ‘Multiply’ – the Government’s new programme to level up adult numeracy. £560m across the SR period will give people the opportunity to develop their numeracy skills, funded from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. Local areas will be allocated funding to deliver interventions from a menu of options including: delivering flexible Functional Skills courses to fit around adults’ lives; supporting adult to build their confidence with numbers; working with employers to deliver innovative workplace-based numeracy programmes. Getting numeracy skills is one of the most valuable things we can do to help people get on: getting Level 2 numeracy increases wages by an average of 14% after seven years, compared to 4% for Level 2 literacy.
Apprenticeships are the government’s premier in-work training offer, providing learners of all ages and at all stages of their careers the opportunity to learn new skills, retrain or upskill. There are over 640 high-quality apprenticeship standards available at levels 2 (GCSE equivalent) to 7 (Master’s degree equivalent), including in ‘in demand’ sectors such as logistics, digital, and health and social care, allowing learners to both build on existing learning and explore new career directions. Higher-level apprenticeships can be an important stepping-stone to achieving these aims. Spending Review 2021 announced the first increase to apprenticeship funding since 2019, with funding rising to £2.7bn by 2024-25.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Bexhill and Battle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what progress his Department has made in levelling up all regions of the UK.
Answered by Simon Clarke
The Government published its Levelling Up White Paper earlier this month. It sets out our missions as part of a decade long plan to see the potential of every corner of the United Kingdom fulfilled.
It builds on the funding allocated at the Spending Review, for example boosting investment in skills training with a total of £3.8 billion in skills by 2024-25, transforming local transport networks with £5.7 billion investment in five-year consolidated transport settlements for eight city regions in England, including Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region, and supporting local infrastructure through the first round of the £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund, which saw 12 places in the North West receive £232 million in funding.
It also provides further detail on the £2.6 billion UK Shared Prosperity Fund, helping people to access new opportunities in places in need.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Bexhill and Battle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to increase wages and support the lowest-income households.
Answered by Simon Clarke
The National Living Wage is increasing by 6.6% to £9.50 an hour for workers aged 23 and over in April 2022, which will benefit more than 2 million workers. This means an increase of over £1,000 to the annual earnings of a full-time worker on the National Living Wage and keeps us on track to our target to end low pay by 2024-25.
We have taken further decisive action to make work pay by cutting the Universal Credit taper rate from 63p to 55p and increasing Universal Credit work allowances by £500 per annum. Taken together, this is a tax cut worth around £1,000 a year for around two million low paid households.
The Government recently announced the ‘Way to Work’ campaign to get 500,000 jobseekers into jobs by the end of June. We know work is the best way for people to get on, to improve their lives and support their families because people on benefits are at least £6,000 better off in full time work.
Through the Plan for Jobs, the Government is also investing £99m in a new In Work Progression offer from April 2022, which will mean more people in work on Universal Credit will be able to access individualised Work Coach support to help them progress and increase their earnings.
The Government is also committed to helping low-income families with the cost of living, including providing £500m for a Household Support Fund to help vulnerable households with costs for essentials such as food, clothing and utilities over the Winter.