Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of selling existing foreign currency reserves for the Government's public sector net debt; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
There has been no assessment made of the effects of selling existing foreign currency reserves.
The reserves have a clearly defined function as set out in the Exchange Equalisation Account (EEA) Act 1979. The foreign exchange reserves are held on a precautionary basis in the event of any unexpected shocks and are also used to provide foreign currency services for government departments, and to carry out the UK’s obligations under its membership of the IMF.
The Chancellor set out new fiscal rules at Budget, and the OBR has confirmed we are on track to see debt falling by 2024-25, and to meet all our fiscal rules.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment he has made of the effect on the public sector net debt of selling existing foreign currency reserves.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
There has been no assessment made of the effects of selling existing foreign currency reserves.
The reserves have a clearly defined function as set out in the Exchange Equalisation Account (EEA) Act 1979. The foreign exchange reserves are held on a precautionary basis in the event of any unexpected shocks and are also used to provide foreign currency services for government departments, and to carry out the UK’s obligations under its membership of the IMF.
The Chancellor set out new fiscal rules at Budget, and the OBR has confirmed we are on track to see debt falling by 2024-25, and to meet all our fiscal rules.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the average rate of return on the Government's holdings of (a) special drawing rights and (b) foreign exchange holdings in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
Information is not held in the form requested and could only be produced at a disproportionate cost due to the complexities of the analysis required.
The Exchange Equalisation Account (EEA) Annual Report and Accounts contains information on the financial position of the Government’s foreign exchange holdings, including the income and asset position. Details of the interest rate on special drawing rights is published by the IMF on a weekly basis. Rates of return may therefore be estimated with reference to this published information.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmt-central-funds#exchange-equalisation-account
https://www.imf.org/en/About/Factsheets/Sheets/2016/08/01/14/51/Special-Drawing-Right-SDR
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the average annual interest was on the UK’s foreign reserves in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
Information is not held in the form requested and could only be produced at a disproportionate cost due to the complexities of the analysis required.
The Exchange Equalisation Account (EEA) Annual Report and Accounts contains information on the financial position of the Government’s foreign exchange holdings, including the income and asset position. Details of the interest rate on special drawing rights is published by the IMF on a weekly basis. Rates of return may therefore be estimated with reference to this published information.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmt-central-funds#exchange-equalisation-account
https://www.imf.org/en/About/Factsheets/Sheets/2016/08/01/14/51/Special-Drawing-Right-SDR
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what his policy is on the reallocation of the IMF's existing stock of Special Drawing Rights.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The IMF Special Drawing Right (SDR) is an international reserve asset designed to supplement the official reserves of IMF member countries. SDRs are allocated to members, including the UK, in proportion to their IMF quota shares. HMG therefore holds SDRs as part of the UK’s international reserves.
The UK has previously used its SDRs to lend to the IMF’s concessional financing facility, the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT). The UK also strongly supports work on a new SDR allocation to provide additional financing to low-income countries. As this year’s G7 Chair, the UK will continue to work closely with the IMF and international partners on options for the further voluntary channelling of SDRs.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what international initiatives he plans to implement to ensure an international reallocation of the IMF'S stock of Special Drawing Rights, ahead of the G7 meeting in June 2021.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The UK supports work on a new Special Drawing Rights (SDR) allocation to provide additional financing to low-income countries. On Friday 12 February the Chancellor chaired the first G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting and set out his priorities for the year including working to provide necessary support for the world’s most vulnerable countries, including through ensuring that the International Financial Institutions have the right tools to equip and enable vulnerable countries to respond to the pandemic. At the G20 Finance Ministers meeting on Friday 26 February the Chancellor also expressed his desire for work on a new IMF Special Drawing Rights allocation which gives additional financing to low income countries to help their response and recovery.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what (a) policies and (b) grant and funding programmes his Department has introduced to provide support to individuals and organisations in response to the covid-19 outbreak; and what funding has been allocated to each of those programmes in the 2020-21 financial year.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - President of the Board of Trade
Since March the Government’s priority has been to save lives and protect jobs, businesses, and livelihoods. To support workers and businesses across all sectors the Government has provided an unprecedented package of support worth more than £280 billion.
As of 5 January, England entered nationwide restrictions to manage a new variant of Coronavirus. With these restrictions, businesses in retail, hospitality and leisure facing forced closure in England are eligible for a one-off grant worth up to £9,000 to help them through to spring. This is on top of the existing Local Restriction Support Grant (Closed) which will continue to offer businesses support of up to £3,000 for each month they closed.
Local authorities are being provided with a top up to the Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) worth £500 million, bringing the total value of ARG to over £1.6 billion. This grant ensures local authorities can support, on a discretionary basis, businesses not eligible for other grants but still affected by restrictions. Business grant policy remains a fully devolved area, with the Devolved Administrations receiving their share of this funding through the Barnett formula in the usual way.
Businesses across the UK can continue to apply for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), which as of mid-December had supported 9.9 million jobs at the cost of over £45 billion, and its extension until the end of April 2021 will give many businesses and workers much-needed security. The Government has also extended the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) until the end of April 2021, with a boosted package of support providing the self-employed with grants covering 80% of average trading profits. So far SEISS has seen 2.7 million self-employed workers make claims under the scheme totaling £13.7 billion.
Businesses needing access to liquidity can also apply for guaranteed loans through various loan schemes, including the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme, the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme and the Bounce Back Loan Scheme, until the end of March 2021. Over 1.4 million small and medium sized companies have received government-backed loans, worth over £68 billion.
This support comes on top of billions of pounds’ worth of business rates reliefs, tax deferrals, and other labour market schemes.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the borrowing capacity of the West Midlands Combined Authority is and what portion of this capacity has been used.
Answered by Steve Barclay - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
HM Treasury agreed debt caps with several Mayoral Combined Authorities in 2018. These caps place a limit on long-term external debt in each financial year, and for the West Midlands this cap is:
£ | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 |
WMCA long-term external debt | 546,744,807 | 783,049,523 | 1,041,974,844 |
Figures published by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government detail outstanding debt on a quarterly basis for each local authority and combined authority. This is available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-local-government-finance
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much money has been allocated through the (a) Small Business Grant Fund, (b) Retail Hospitality and Leisure Grant Fund and (c) Local Authority Discretionary Grant Fund by region.
Answered by Jesse Norman
Separate data is not held for the Small Business Grant Fund and the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant Fund. The data for these schemes have been grouped together.
• East Midlands: local authorities distributed over £911 million from the Small Business Grant Fund (SBGF) and the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant Fund (RHLGF). They also allocated over £47 million to businesses from the Local Authority Discretionary Grant Fund (LADGF).
• East of England: local authorities distributed over £1.1 billion from the SBGF and RHLGF. They also allocated over £59 million from the LADGF
• London: local authorities distributed over £1.6 billion from the SBGF and RHLGF. They also allocated over £79 million from the LADGF
• North East: local authorities distributed over £512 million from the SBGF and RHLGF. They also allocated over £25 million from the LADGF
• North West: local authorities distributed over £1.5 billion from the SBGF and RHLGF. They also allocated over £77 million from the LADGDF
• South East: local authorities distributed over £1.6 billion from the SBGF and RHLGF. They also allocated over £82 million from the LADGF
• South West: local authorities distributed over £1.3 billion from the SBGF and RHLGF. They also allocated over £73 million from the LADGF
• West Midlands: local authorities distributed over £1.1 billion from the SBGF and RHLGF. They also allocated over £56 million from the LADGF
• Yorkshire and the Humber: local authorities distributed over £1.2 billion from the SBGF and RHLGF. They also allocated over £60 million from the LADGF.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to section 4.1 of the 2020 spending review, what the value is of the accelerated capital spending projects awarded within the West Midlands Combined Authority area.
Answered by Steve Barclay - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
In June this year, the Prime Minister announced that the Government would accelerate over £5 billion of infrastructure projects. When taken together with the Plan for Jobs, this means that Government is accelerating £8.6 billion of capital spending.
This accelerated capital spending includes the £900m Getting Building Fund, from which West Midlands Combined Authority received an allocation of £66 million. The funding will support projects such as the University Station development, the Very Light Rail Innovation Centre, and the Precision Health Technology Accelerator.