Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the number and proportion of families who will access tax-free childcare in each year up to 2025.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
The forecasts for spending on Tax-Free Childcare can be found in table 4.17 of the OBR’s Economic & Fiscal Outlook (https://cdn.obr.uk/March-2019_EFO_Web-Accessible.pdf) and are contained in table 1 below, along with forecasts of the number of families and the proportion of eligible families using Tax-Free Childcare.
Table 1
| Outturn | Forecast | |||||
2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 | |
TFC Spending | £32m | £0.1bn | £0.3bn | £0.4bn | £0.6bn | £0.8bn | £1.0bn |
Number of Families Using TFC (at year end) | 47,000 | 0.1m | 0.3m | 0.4m | 0.5m | 0.6m | 0.8m |
Proportion of Eligible Families Using TFC | 3% | 8% | 16% | 24% | 32% | 41% | 49% |
Details on Tax-Free Childcare usage up to December 2018 can be found in the official statistics publication (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/tax-free-childcare-statistics-december-2018).
The statistics show that 90,800 families used Tax-Free Childcare in December 2018. This represents around 5.8 per cent of eligible families.
The statistics also show that 256,900 families had an open Tax-Free Childcare account in December 2018, and that 35 per cent of these had been used during the month.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many and what proportion of families estimated to be eligible for tax-free childcare have received such childcare in each year since its introduction.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
The forecasts for spending on Tax-Free Childcare can be found in table 4.17 of the OBR’s Economic & Fiscal Outlook (https://cdn.obr.uk/March-2019_EFO_Web-Accessible.pdf) and are contained in table 1 below, along with forecasts of the number of families and the proportion of eligible families using Tax-Free Childcare.
Table 1
| Outturn | Forecast | |||||
2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 | |
TFC Spending | £32m | £0.1bn | £0.3bn | £0.4bn | £0.6bn | £0.8bn | £1.0bn |
Number of Families Using TFC (at year end) | 47,000 | 0.1m | 0.3m | 0.4m | 0.5m | 0.6m | 0.8m |
Proportion of Eligible Families Using TFC | 3% | 8% | 16% | 24% | 32% | 41% | 49% |
Details on Tax-Free Childcare usage up to December 2018 can be found in the official statistics publication (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/tax-free-childcare-statistics-december-2018).
The statistics show that 90,800 families used Tax-Free Childcare in December 2018. This represents around 5.8 per cent of eligible families.
The statistics also show that 256,900 families had an open Tax-Free Childcare account in December 2018, and that 35 per cent of these had been used during the month.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what forecast the Office of Budget responsibility has made for spending on tax-free childcare in each year since its introduction and until 2025.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
The forecasts for spending on Tax-Free Childcare can be found in table 4.17 of the OBR’s Economic & Fiscal Outlook (https://cdn.obr.uk/March-2019_EFO_Web-Accessible.pdf) and are contained in table 1 below, along with forecasts of the number of families and the proportion of eligible families using Tax-Free Childcare.
Table 1
| Outturn | Forecast | |||||
2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 | |
TFC Spending | £32m | £0.1bn | £0.3bn | £0.4bn | £0.6bn | £0.8bn | £1.0bn |
Number of Families Using TFC (at year end) | 47,000 | 0.1m | 0.3m | 0.4m | 0.5m | 0.6m | 0.8m |
Proportion of Eligible Families Using TFC | 3% | 8% | 16% | 24% | 32% | 41% | 49% |
Details on Tax-Free Childcare usage up to December 2018 can be found in the official statistics publication (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/tax-free-childcare-statistics-december-2018).
The statistics show that 90,800 families used Tax-Free Childcare in December 2018. This represents around 5.8 per cent of eligible families.
The statistics also show that 256,900 families had an open Tax-Free Childcare account in December 2018, and that 35 per cent of these had been used during the month.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much the marriage tax allowance has cost the public purse; how many married couples have been eligible for it; and how many and what proportion of eligible married couples have benefitted from it in each year since it was introduced.
Answered by Mel Stride - Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
HMRC publishes the estimated cost of tax reliefs annually and the latest estimate can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/main-tax-expenditures-and-structural-reliefs
HMRC’s projection of the cost of the Marriage Allowance include the anticipated full take up of the allowance after all retrospective claims have been made, as the allowance can be claimed retrospectively for up to four years:
£ million | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 |
Marriage Allowance | 680 | 735 | 835 |
. Around 4.2 million couples are estimated to be eligible to claim the marriage allowance. The table below shows the approximate proportion of those who are eligible and are estimated to have made a claim for marriage allowance.
% | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 |
Marriage Allowance | 16 | 44 | 67 |
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much funding his Department has allocated to the married couple's allowance in each of the next three financial years.
Answered by Mel Stride - Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
HMRC publishes the estimated cost of the Married Couples Allowance (MCA) for the years up to the current tax year in their “Estimated costs of principal tax reliefs” publication, available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/main-tax-expenditures-and-structural-reliefs
The estimated cost of the MCA is:
£m | |||||
2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 |
345 | 330 | 290 | 240 | 195 | 165 |
In 2018-19 there are estimated to be around 270,000 claimants of MCA. HMRC does not hold estimates of the total number of married couples. Reliable estimates of the numbers in receipt of MCA are not available at local authority or constituency level due to insufficient sample size.
The published estimates are based on the 2015-16 Survey of Personal Incomes projected using economic assumptions consistent with the OBR’s October 2018 Economic and Fiscal Outlook.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many and what proportion of married couples are (a) eligible for and (b) in receipt of the married couples tax allowance in each (i) local authority and (ii) parliamentary constituency.
Answered by Mel Stride - Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
HMRC publishes the estimated cost of the Married Couples Allowance (MCA) for the years up to the current tax year in their “Estimated costs of principal tax reliefs” publication, available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/main-tax-expenditures-and-structural-reliefs
The estimated cost of the MCA is:
£m | |||||
2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 |
345 | 330 | 290 | 240 | 195 | 165 |
In 2018-19 there are estimated to be around 270,000 claimants of MCA. HMRC does not hold estimates of the total number of married couples. Reliable estimates of the numbers in receipt of MCA are not available at local authority or constituency level due to insufficient sample size.
The published estimates are based on the 2015-16 Survey of Personal Incomes projected using economic assumptions consistent with the OBR’s October 2018 Economic and Fiscal Outlook.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what data his Department holds on the ages of people who claim married couple's allowance.
Answered by Mel Stride - Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Married Couple’s Allowance (MCA) is available for couples where at least one of the partners was born before 6th April 1935. For the current tax year, at least one of the partners would have to have been at least 83 years old as of 6th April 2018.
For 2018-19, the average age of claimants of MCA is around 87 years old.
This estimate is based on the 2015-16 Survey of Personal Incomes projected using economic assumptions consistent with the OBR’s October 2018 Economic and Fiscal Outlook.