Asked by: Kirsty Blackman (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will publish a list of all media publishers that received funding from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
HMRC’s legal duty of confidentiality applies to information about specific Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) claims.
A Ministerial Direction allowed HMRC to publish information about employer furlough claims from December 2020.
The Ministerial Direction only allowed HMRC to have this data published for a length of 12 months, so HMRC can no longer publish information on employers who received funding from the CJRS from December 2020 to September 2021, when the scheme closed.
Asked by: Kirsty Blackman (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many pieces of (a) primary and (b) secondary legislation their Department has sponsored in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Primary Legislation:
The number of pieces of primary legislation sponsored by Government departments could be calculated utilising publicly available information. This information is not held within the Department.
Secondary Legislation:
Year | Secondary Legislation |
2011 | 154 |
2012 | 123 |
2013 | 157 |
2014 | 120 |
2015 | 153 |
2016 | 101 |
2017 | 123 |
2018 | 107 |
2019 | 135 |
2020 | 122 |
2021 | 111 |
This information is only held for internal administrative reasons and may not be exhaustive.
Asked by: Kirsty Blackman (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many and what proportion of the (a) primary and (b) secondary legislation sponsored by (i) their Department or (ii) their predecessor Department has undergone a post legislative review in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In the last 10 years, HM Treasury has records of three Acts of primary legislation having undergone post legislative reviews.
HM Treasury does not hold information on how many post legislative reviews the Department has undertaken on secondary legislation in each of the last ten years.
Section 28 of The Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 (‘SBEE Act 2015’) brought in a new duty to review secondary legislation, with exceptions where it is deemed inappropriate by the responsible Minister to do so. Prior to this, there was no statutory requirement to review secondary legislation.
HM Treasury does not hold information on the proportion of post legislative reviews the Department has undertaken on primary and secondary legislation in each of the last ten years.
However, post legislative reviews prior to the introduction of the SBEE Act 2015 will be available on legislation.gov.uk or gov.uk where it was possible to publish them, considering market sensitivity.
This information on primary and secondary legislation is only held for internal administrative reasons and may not be exhaustive, for example, due to machinery of government changes to departmental structure in the past decade.
Asked by: Kirsty Blackman (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many post legislative reviews (a) their Department or (b) their predecessor Department has undertaken on (i) primary and (ii) secondary legislation in each of the last five years.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In the last five years, HM Treasury undertook and laid one post legislative review for primary legislation, which covered multiple Acts. Separately, post legislative memorandums may be found on gov.uk.
For secondary legislation, post legislative reviews are known as Post-Implementation Reviews (PIRs) if they come under the Better Regulation Framework. Between Jan 2017-Jan 2022, under the scope defined by the SBEE Act 2015 and the Better Regulation Framework, HM Treasury has records of 19 PIRs having been completed and published. The breakdown for each of the last five years is as follows: 1 in 2017; 3 in 2018; 6 in 2019; 2 in 2020; 6 in 2021; 1 in 2022.
This information on post legislative reviews of both primary and secondary legislation is only held in HM Treasury for internal administrative reasons and may not be exhaustive, for example, due to machinery of government changes to departmental structure in the past decade.
Where possible, considering any market sensitivity, all post legislative reviews or post legislative memorandums are published on gov.uk, and PIRs are published alongside the original legislation on legislation.gov.uk for transparency and accountability.
As well as completed reviews, there are a number of PIRs currently being undertaken, some of which cover multiple pieces of legislation.
Asked by: Kirsty Blackman (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of expanding eligibility for the Matching Adjustment to include morbidity liabilities as part of the Solvency II Review.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Government published a Call for Evidence for its Review of Solvency II in October 2020. The Government published a Response to its Call for Evidence on 1 July 2021. This Response set out the next steps including a consultation in early 2022.
The matching adjustment was identified in the Call for Evidence as an area for review. As noted in the Response to the Call for Evidence, “respondents also raised a variety of other eligibility-related points, for example that the eligibility of liabilities for the matching adjustment could be expanded”. The Government is considering the range of views received on this topic.