Asked by: Lloyd Hatton (Labour - South Dorset)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to increase the number of GP services in South Dorset constituency.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We promised to improve access to GPs, and that’s exactly what we are doing. This year we have invested an additional £601m in the GP contract and we’ve delivered 8 million more appointments than last year, with South Dorset seeing an increase of 27,000. We have 2,000 more fully-qualified GPs than in July 2024, which includes 12 extra GPs in Dorset ICB, an increase of 3% and from this year we're enabling PCNs to recruit a broader range of roles to improve access to services. At a local level, NHS Dorset ICB has the responsibility for commissioning services to meet the needs of my honourable friend’s constituency.Asked by: Lloyd Hatton (Labour - South Dorset)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many farmers received payments under the Sustainable Farming Incentive for buffer strip actions in the previous scheme year.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In the 2025 scheme year a total of 4,894 farm businesses received at least one payment for buffer strip actions delivered under the Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme.
Asked by: Lloyd Hatton (Labour - South Dorset)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to tackle backlogs in the courts.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Sir Brian’s report set out a blueprint for pragmatic structural reform in our criminal courts and made clear that action across the process is essential.
The Courts and Tribunals Bill is the first step to putting that blueprint into law. Coupled with record investment in sitting days and criminal legal aid and modernisation of listing practices and use of case coordinators and blitz courts to boost efficiencies, we are taking a neglected service and bringing it, finally, into the 21st century.
Asked by: Lloyd Hatton (Labour - South Dorset)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to help ensure the accuracy of information provided by tax advisers.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
HMRC’s standard for agents sets the minimum expectations for all tax advisers and is regularly reviewed by HMRC. While the vast majority of tax advisers support taxpayers to pay the right amount of tax, the government is legislating in this year’s Finance Bill to give HMRC the powers to better tackle tax advisers who facilitate non-compliance.
Asked by: Lloyd Hatton (Labour - South Dorset)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps she is taking to improve Weymouth train station.
Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Southwestern Railway is empowered to make sure its stations are well-maintained and meet customer expectations. Southwestern Railway must prioritise urgent and safety related maintenance, but there are some improvements at Weymouth Station in the pipeline, such as netting and spiking to deter seagulls.
Asked by: Lloyd Hatton (Labour - South Dorset)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps he is taking to help support offshore wind supply chains in South Dorset constituency.
Answered by Chris McDonald - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government set out a £1b support package with Great British Energy, The Crown Estate and industry supporting new infrastructure, including ports and manufacturing across the UK. GBE recently opened its £300m fund, to support manufacturing investment and deployment.
Asked by: Lloyd Hatton (Labour - South Dorset)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, whether the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has any formal policies or guidance aimed at preventing potential retaliation against whistleblowers who report wrongdoing to the SFO; and whether consideration has been given to developing structural protections against retaliation for whistleblowers following the government's Anti-Corruption Strategy launch event in December 2025.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The SFO has well established formal policies and guidance aimed at protecting whistleblowers who report allegations of criminality. All whistleblowers who report to the SFO are dealt with by appropriately trained, nationally NPCC accredited members of staff whose role is to engage with whistleblowers and understand what is required to protect these people from retaliation or harm of any kind. The SFOs whistleblowing handling processes have also been fully reviewed and strengthened over the past year to ensure that all reports continue to be handled in accordance with national guidance.
The Government’s recently published Anti-Corruption Strategy commits to explore opportunities to reform the UK’s approach to whistleblowing in the employment context.
Asked by: Lloyd Hatton (Labour - South Dorset)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to please provide staff turnover figures for the Wealthy Team in HMRC for each financial year 2017/18 to 2024/25.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The table below provides the turnover rate, based on average Full Time Equivalent (FTE), for each year from 2021/22. Staff data is retained only for as long as it is required to meet its intended business purpose, after which it is securely deleted in line with HMRC’s data retention policy. The number of leavers includes staff leaving HMRC, moves to other Customer Compliance Group (CCG) directorates, moves outside of CCG and leavers within Wealthy and Mid-sized Business Compliance (WMBC). Tax year 21/22 includes moves to COVID schemes, whilst 24/25 included moves to other teams in Wealthy and Mid-sized Business Compliance, working on wealthy related risk.
Tax Year | Total Leavers | Average FTE over year | Turnover rate |
2021/22 | 258 | 856 | 30% |
2022/23 | 156 | 951 | 16% |
2023/24 | 131 | 988 | 13% |
2024/25 | 166 | 898 | 18% |
Asked by: Lloyd Hatton (Labour - South Dorset)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much and what proportion of the wealthy tax gap HMRC attributes to (a) Capital Gains Tax and (b) Inheritance Tax for each financial year from 2017-18 to 2024-25.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Wealthy tax gap estimates are published in Measuring the Tax Gap 2025 for 2005-06 to 2023-24. There are no estimates for 2024-25 at this time, these will be published in future tax gap publications.
We use Income Tax, Capital Gains Tax (CGT) and National Insurance Contributions (NICs) data in our estimate of the Self-Assessment (SA) wealthy tax gap. It is not possible to separately estimate the CGT share within this tax gap. We are therefore unable to provide the details for CGT.
The overall wealthy tax gap, detailed in Chapter 1 Figure 1.4 of MTG25 and Table 1.4 of the online tables, breaks down as follows:
(£ billion) | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 |
Self-Assessment | 1.43 | 1.35 | 1.34 | 1.23 | 1.67 | 1.78 | 1.95 |
Inheritance Tax | 0.20 | 0.19 | 0.19 | 0.10 | 0.20 | 0.12 | 0.15 |
Stamp Duties | 0.02 | 0.05 | 0.05 | 0.04 | 0.04 | 0.05 | 0.04 |
Net Gap | 1.65 | 1.59 | 1.58 | 1.37 | 1.92 | 1.95 | 2.13 |
Or as a percentage share of the overall wealthy tax gap:
(£ billion) | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 |
Self-Assessment | 86.7% | 85.0% | 84.7% | 90.0% | 87.2% | 91.6% | 91.3% |
Inheritance Tax | 11.9% | 12.1% | 12.1% | 7.1% | 10.5% | 6.0% | 6.9% |
Stamp Duties | 1.4% | 2.9% | 3.2% | 2.9% | 2.3% | 2.4% | 1.7% |
Asked by: Lloyd Hatton (Labour - South Dorset)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the total compliance yield generated by HMRC’s Wealthy Team was in each financial year between 2017-18 and 2024-25.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The table below shows the compliance yield attributed to the wealthy customer group, which includes yield generated by HMRCs Wealthy Team. HMRC does not hold the figures for 2017-18. We have provided details from the earliest period available in the table below:-
Annual Report figures | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25 |
Compliance Yield (£m) | 1,800 | 2,200 | 3,000 | 2,500 | 4,000 | 5,200 | 3,700 |
Compliance yield for the wealthy population can fluctuate year on year because it can be impacted by the nature of the work and risks being settled as well as the settlement of a small number of complex, high value cases and litigation outcomes. Complex cases can take time to work through which can lead to yearly fluctuations.