Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many members of staff have left his Department since 1 January 2015; and how many of those members of staff were nationals of non-UK EU countries.
Answered by Andrew Jones
HM Treasury leavers based on financial years and current year to date figures.
| Apr 2014 to Mar 2015 | Apr 2015 to Mar 2016 | Apr 2016 to Mar 2017 | Apr 2017 to Oct 2017 |
Total leavers | 267 | 271 | 327 | 171 |
All Government Departments are bound by legal requirements concerning the right to work in the UK and, in addition, the Civil Service Nationality Rules.
Evidence of nationality is checked at the point of recruitment into the Civil Service as part of wider pre-employment checks, but there is no requirement on departments to retain this information beyond the point at which it has served its purpose.
More broadly, the Government will be consulting in due course on how we work with business to ensure that workers in this country have the skills that they need to get a job. But there are no proposals to publish lists of the number or proportion of foreign workers.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 22 March 2017 to Question 67778, if he will make it his policy to end the practice of (a) the DVLA and (b) other Government agencies who impose a credit card surcharge greater than the 0.3 per cent cap for credit transactions.
Answered by Simon Kirby
HM Treasury has not made an analysis of the Government departments and agencies that apply a surcharge when customers make payments by credit card.
However, from January 2018 the Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) introduces a ban on surcharging which means that retailers will no longer be able to charge consumers to use payment instruments for which interchange fees are regulated, which includes the majority of consumer debit and credit cards.
Merchants currently pay a merchant service charge to process all card transactions. Part of this covers the fees that a merchant acquirer can be charged by a card issuing bank for processing transactions known as interchange fees. The Interchange Fee Regulation (IFR), which came into force in December 2015, caps the fees that could be passed on to consumers from merchants in the form of higher prices at 0.2% and 0.3% for debit and credit cards respectively.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will publish a list of government departments and agencies that apply a surcharge when customers make payments by credit card.
Answered by Simon Kirby
HM Treasury has not made an analysis of the Government departments and agencies that apply a surcharge when customers make payments by credit card.
However, from January 2018 the Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) introduces a ban on surcharging which means that retailers will no longer be able to charge consumers to use payment instruments for which interchange fees are regulated, which includes the majority of consumer debit and credit cards.
Merchants currently pay a merchant service charge to process all card transactions. Part of this covers the fees that a merchant acquirer can be charged by a card issuing bank for processing transactions known as interchange fees. The Interchange Fee Regulation (IFR), which came into force in December 2015, caps the fees that could be passed on to consumers from merchants in the form of higher prices at 0.2% and 0.3% for debit and credit cards respectively.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 22 March 2017 to Question 67778, what steps he is taking to ensure local trading standards officers are adequately resourced to effectively enforce the interchange fee regulation.
Answered by Simon Kirby
Local Trading Standards officers are not responsible for enforcing the Interchange Fee Regulation. The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) is responsible for monitoring compliance with the interchange fee regulation in the UK and for taking enforcement action where appropriate.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the number of (a) airline and (b) other companies that charge over the 0.3 per cent cap for credit card transactions.
Answered by Simon Kirby
The Payment Systems Regulator is responsible for monitoring compliance with the Interchange Fee Regulation in the UK and for taking enforcement action where appropriate. Government has therefore not made an analysis of the number of companies that do not comply with the Regulation.
The Interchange Fee Regulation (IFR) caps the fees that a merchant acquirer can be charged by a card issuing bank at 0.2% and 0.3% for debit and credit cards respectively. This cost can be passed on to consumers through the practice of surcharging. The Government recently closed a consultation on how the revised Payment Services Directive should be implemented in the UK. One of the provisions in the Directive is a ban on merchants surcharging cards regulated under the IFR.
The interchange fee is part of the merchant service charge that a merchant pays to its bank or merchant acquirer to process its card transactions