Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will publish guidance to encourage mortgage lenders to consider an applicant’s ability to service a loan on the basis of rental monies paid rather than a multiple of salary.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade
The Government is committed to helping as many first-time buyers as possible get onto the housing ladder and agrees that a history of paying rent should be able to help with this.
In 2017, the Government launched the Rent Recognition Challenge: a £2 million competition challenging the UK’s world-leading tech firms to develop innovative applications to enable tenants to record and share their rental payment data with lenders and credit reference agencies.
The Government encourages all renters to consider what options are available to them with regards to rent recognition.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to prevent financial institutions ending financial contracts on the basis of their clients' beliefs.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade
The Government consulted in January-April 2023 specifically on the issue of contract termination and freedom of expression for payment service providers as part of its review of the relevant regulations – the Payment Services Regulations 2017 – and is currently reviewing the responses. The Government is committed to bringing a Written Ministerial Statement before the House to report on the Government’s findings on this matter, and to set out if any changes to regulation are necessary, ahead of its formal response to the Review.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to make it his policy that charges levied by the Ultra Low Emission Zone are considered as allowable expenses for tax purposes.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Employees are entitled to tax relief for the full cost they are obliged to incur travelling in the performance of their duties or travelling to or from a place of duty – as long as the journey is not ordinary commuting or private travel. This includes the actual cost of travel together with any subsistence expenditure and other associated costs, including the Ultra-Low Emission Zone charge, that are incurred in making the journey.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make it his policy to freeze the duty band for wine of 11.5 per cent to 14.5 per cent.
Answered by Gareth Davies - Shadow Minister (Business and Trade)
The duty band for wine between 11.5 and 14.5 per cent is a temporary provision to help the wine industry transition to the new alcohol duty system. From February 2025, the wine easement will come to an end and wine will be taxed according to its strength to ensure consistency of treatment across all categories of alcohol.
All decisions on alcohol duty rates are reserved for the Chancellor as part of his Budget process and will be taken during the fiscal event cycle in the usual way.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department has taken to support people over the age of 50 to re-enter the employment market.
Answered by John Glen
There does not appear to be one single cause driving older worker inactivity, and an ONS survey of recently inactive people aged over-50 highlighted retirement, redundancy, changes in lifestyle, caring responsibilities, and illness as some of the most common reasons.
The Government has already announced a £1.3 billion support package to help those with health conditions or disabilities get into and thrive in work. This is alongside DWP’s 50PLUS: Choices offer, which provides support to help older workers remain in, or return to, work.
To understand what further action should be taken as a result of the rise in economic inactivity, the Department for Work and Pensions is thoroughly reviewing workforce participation. The Government will respond in due course.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what proportion of his Department’s employees work from home at least one day a week.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
HMT operates a hybrid working arrangement which requires staff to spend as a minimum 50% of their working time in the office. This equates to office attendance of 2-3 days per week for fulltime staff and pro-rata basis for part-time staff. HMT’s office occupancy data is published on Gov.Uk:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-headquarters-occupancy-data
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department held consultations with representatives from the Local Government Association before establishing a date of 2025 to begin the funding programme for home insulation as announced in the 2022 Autumn Statement.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
At the Autumn Statement, the Chancellor announced £6bn of additional funding for energy efficiency, covering the financial years 2025/26 to 2027/28.
This provides funding certainty to the sector ahead of the next Spending Review.
Almost £3bn is already allocated for Financial Years 2023/24 and 2024/25 on energy efficiency, the majority of which will go to Local Authorities. In addition to this, the government is expanding the Energy Company Obligation by £1 billion over the next three years, from April 2023.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment his Department has made of the accuracy of credit rating agencies in assigning sovereign credit ratings to African countries.
Answered by John Glen
Credit rating agencies have an important role in rating the investment risk of sovereigns. This allows lenders to assess risk and therefore supports the functioning and development of financial markets.
The Credit Rating Agencies Regulation requires the ratings agencies to publish the methodologies used as well as the factors they have considered in producing the rating.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to forecasts from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, what assessment he has made of the implications for his Department’s policies of raising £37 billion in tax above that forecast's estimate for July 2022.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) published an updated forecast on 23 November alongside the Autumn Statement, which is more recent than the Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis from the summer. The Government took steps at the Autumn Statement to put the public finances on a sustainable path. This required difficult decisions on both tax and spending. The OBR’s forecast took on all changes to the economic and fiscal outlook, including the latest policy decisions by the government. In this forecast, they revised their forecast of Public Sector Current Receipts in 2024-25 to £1,096.0 billion from their March of £1,090.4 billon (up £5.6 billion).
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what fiscal steps he is taking to increase economic (a) growth and (b) productivity.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
The government remains committed to boosting economic growth as the route to raising the prosperity of people across the UK. It is taking action to ensure we have the right skills, high quality infrastructure and support for firms to innovate and invest.
We have brought forward measures to provide businesses with the skills they need through T-Levels, Skills Bootcamps and apprenticeships; supported businesses to invest and innovate through freezing the business rates multiplier for 2022-23 and permanently setting the Annual Investment Allowance at its highest ever level of £1 million from 1 April 2023. We continue to deliver high quality infrastructure through the National Infrastructure Strategy and are currently legislating to put the UK Infrastructure Bank on a statutory footing, with £22bn financial capacity, and aiming to crowd-in a further £18bn.
We recognise that the immediate global challenge of inflationary pressure is destabilising for businesses of all sizes. The Government is therefore committed to delivering wider economic stability, with a strong fiscal focus on tackling inflation, so that businesses will have the confidence to invest and grow.
The Chancellor has announced that the Autumn Statement will be delivered on 17 November. This will set out further fiscal steps to raise productivity and drive economic growth sustainably.