Asked by: Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the limit for claims under the Disabled Facilities Grant from £30,000 to (a) £50,000 and (b) another amount.
Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Government is committed to helping older and disabled people to live independently and safely. Government funding for Disabled Facilities Grant has more than doubled, rising from £220 million in 2015-16 to £623 million for 2023-24.
Local areas already have discretion in how they manage the grant, for example, they can increase the cap on a case-by-case basis or in line with a locally published housing assistance policy. In 2022, Government published guidance for local authorities on the Disabled Facilities Grant, which includes information on using discretion in local delivery of the grant. The guidance can be found here.
As with all aspects of the Disabled Facilities Grant, the Government will continue to keep the upper limit under review.
Asked by: Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to provide funding to the West Midlands Ambulance Service Student's Paramedic Apprenticeship Programme.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Employers of all sizes can access funding for apprenticeships training and assessment when they need it. The department does not allocate funding to particular employers, apprenticeship standards or sectors.
As a levy paying employer, West Midlands Ambulance Service can utilise their levy funds to invest in the high-quality apprenticeships training they choose. The West Midlands Ambulance Service is also registered and approved to deliver apprenticeships training for other employers.
To support more employers across the country, including the National Health Service (NHS), to recruit new apprentices, the department is increasing funding for apprenticeships in England to £2.7 billion by the 2024/25 financial year.
The NHS have recently published their long-term workforce plan which puts apprenticeships and skills at the heart of the NHS workforce strategy. The proportion of paramedics who will be trained through apprenticeships will be between 25 – 50% by 2031/32.
These apprenticeships will make medical professions more accessible and help to build a highly skilled and diverse NHS workforce that is more representative of local communities.
Asked by: Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate she has made of the number of people without work visas who are working in the building sector.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office does not have an estimate of the number of people working illegally specifically on app-based work platforms.
Asked by: Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps she is taking to help reduce economic loses caused by rogue builders operating in the repair, maintenance and improvement sector.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The domestic repair, maintenance, and improvement (RMI) sector is a vital part of the construction industry. It is one where genuine concern exists about consumer protection. The Government is committed to ensuring that we have a high-quality and professional construction industry and works with the industry and Local Authority trading standards, to improve standards of competence, consumer protection and redress, and to act against rogue builders.
The Department consulted last year on proposals to make alternative dispute resolution mandatory in the home improvements sector as part of a broader attempt to strengthen consumer rights in problematic sectors. We are now working with the Ministry of Justice to help inform and support their policy development on the use of mediation as an integrated part of the justice system.
Asked by: Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent estimate his Department has made of the amount of income tax that was lost due to tax fraud by builders in the repair, maintenance and improvement sector in the last 12 months.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) estimates the tax gap, which will encompass fraud, for all taxes including VAT, Corporation Tax and Income Tax. However, HMRC does not make a separate estimate of the amount of fraud within the tax gap nor is it not possible to subdivide these tax gap estimates into fraud by builders in the repair, maintenance and improvement sector in the last 12 months.
Tax gap estimates for VAT, Income Tax and Corporation Tax for tax year 2021-2022 are available in chapters 2, 4 and 5, respectively, of HMRC’s publication Measuring tax gaps 2023 edition. An illustrative breakdown of the tax gap by customer behaviour is available in chapter 7. This report is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/measuring-tax-gaps.
Asked by: Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent estimate his Department has made of the amount of corporation tax that was lost due to tax fraud by builders in the repair, maintenance and improvement sector in the last 12 months.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) estimates the tax gap, which will encompass fraud, for all taxes including VAT, Corporation Tax and Income Tax. However, HMRC does not make a separate estimate of the amount of fraud within the tax gap nor is it not possible to subdivide these tax gap estimates into fraud by builders in the repair, maintenance and improvement sector in the last 12 months.
Tax gap estimates for VAT, Income Tax and Corporation Tax for tax year 2021-2022 are available in chapters 2, 4 and 5, respectively, of HMRC’s publication Measuring tax gaps 2023 edition. An illustrative breakdown of the tax gap by customer behaviour is available in chapter 7. This report is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/measuring-tax-gaps.
Asked by: Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent estimate his Department has made of the amount of VAT that was lost due to tax fraud by builders in the repair, maintenance and improvement sector in the last 12 months.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) estimates the tax gap, which will encompass fraud, for all taxes including VAT, Corporation Tax and Income Tax. However, HMRC does not make a separate estimate of the amount of fraud within the tax gap nor is it not possible to subdivide these tax gap estimates into fraud by builders in the repair, maintenance and improvement sector in the last 12 months.
Tax gap estimates for VAT, Income Tax and Corporation Tax for tax year 2021-2022 are available in chapters 2, 4 and 5, respectively, of HMRC’s publication Measuring tax gaps 2023 edition. An illustrative breakdown of the tax gap by customer behaviour is available in chapter 7. This report is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/measuring-tax-gaps.
Asked by: Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding his Department has provided to the West Midlands Ambulance Service Student's Paramedic Apprenticeship Programme in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department does not provide levy funding for apprenticeships. HM Revenue & Customs collect Apprenticeship Levy payments and funding is allocated and drawn down by employers via the Department for Education.
Asked by: Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest)
Question to the Home Office:
[EU edit] To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the updated harms assessment by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs on nitrous oxide, published on 7 March 2023, when she plans to respond to its findings; what assessment she has made of the potential merits of specifically proscribing nitrous oxide; and whether it is her policy to support the other recommendations in that report.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) published their report on nitrous oxide on 6 March, setting out the evidence as it currently stands and made seven recommendations.
The Government will consider the ACMD advice carefully along with any other available evidence, as appropriate, and will respond in due course.
Asked by: Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what consideration she has given to using the General Product Safety Regulations 2005 to ban the misuse of nitrous oxide.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
On 3 September 2021, the Government asked the independent statutory advisory body, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), to provide an updated assessment of the harms of nitrous oxide, including advice on whether it should be controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The ACMD is independent of Government and can provide a broad range of recommendations, including advice on regulatory or legislative changes. The Government will consider the ACMD advice carefully along with any other evidence, including that relating to any potential legislative or regulatory options beyond control under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, as appropriate, before deciding how to proceed.