Oral Answers to Questions

Mel Stride Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

1. If he will make it his policy to increase the marriage allowance.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mel Stride)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on all the hard work that he has put in to promote marriage and civil partnerships, and all the benefits thereof to families and wider society. I assure him that the design of the marriage allowance is such that it will indeed continue to rise as we raise the personal allowance, as we did in the recent Budget.

[Mr Jayawardena]

Given the £48 billion of costs to the Exchequer from family breakdown, will my hon. Friend meet me and a delegation to discuss how we can further strengthen marriage through the tax system and help people to keep more of what they earn?

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is pushing in a direction in which we have already travelled. In the last Budget, we made provision for ensuring that those who have been married or in a civil partnership and have a deceased partner are able to claim the marriage allowance and backdate that claim some four years. I will, of course, be happy to meet him and his colleagues to discuss this matter further.

[Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) (Con)]

2. What assessment he has made of the effect on average personal incomes of recent increases in the national minimum wage and national living wage.

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[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

4. If he will bring forward legislative proposals in respect of the imposition of inheritance tax on direct personal donations to campaign groups involved in referendums.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mel Stride)]

My hon. Friend will know that the inheritance tax exemption for donations to political parties does not exist for donations to referendum campaigns. However, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and I have discussed the issues that my hon. Friend has raised in previous weeks, and we are sympathetic to looking carefully at how the law may be changed for future referendum campaigns.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

In the past nine years, there have been 23 retroactive tax changes where there has been unfairness, error or unduly onerous taxation. When the law was drafted in 1994, there was no idea that there would be a succession of referendums. It is deeply unfair that people who have contributed to the alternative vote referendum, the referendum in Scotland and the Brexit referendum may find very large tax bills winging their way towards them, not least as Her Majesty’s Government spent £8 million of taxpayers’ money willy-nilly in the Brexit referendum.

[Mel Stride]

As a matter of principle, it is not the position of Her Majesty’s Treasury to apply tax changes retrospectively but, as I have indicated, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and I will be looking carefully at the issues that my hon. Friend has raised.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

Pursuant to that question, may I add one further caveat, given that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is beginning to look at all the other referendums that have taken place? Will it take into consideration those organisations that are not charities or political parties, but which do public good? They are beginning to be concerned that HMRC will pursue individuals who have made donations to them. Will my right hon. Friend take looking at that under his wing as well?

[Mel Stride]

My right hon. Friend raises an interesting point. He might like to make specific representations to me on the matters he has raised. Indeed, if he wishes to meet me to discuss them, I would be very happy to do so.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

5. What assessment he has made of potential risks to the economy from high levels of Government borrowing.

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[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

13. What progress he has made on reducing the level of corporate tax evasion and the tax gap.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mel Stride)]

The Government have an outstanding record on clamping down on tax avoidance, evasion and non-compliance. We have brought in and protected £160 billion since 2010, and no less than £8 billion in 2016-17 alone, from the UK’s largest companies. Currently at 6%, the tax gap is one of the lowest in the world, and lower than any year during the last Labour Government.

[Nigel Mills]

Does the Minister agree that an international approach is needed to really tackle tax evasion by big multinational companies? Will he therefore say whether the interesting ideas on which he has consulted since the Budget have found favour in his discussions with the OECD and may be adopted on a more international basis?

[Mel Stride]

As my hon. Friend will know, we are right at the forefront of the OECD’s base erosion and profit shifting project, and of the common reporting standards that are being rolled out at the moment. We have taken further measures in the Budget to consult on the taxation of digitally based companies, particularly in respect of withholding tax on royalties going to zero-tax or low-tax jurisdictions. That consultation will report back in February, and we will take an appropriate decision thereafter.

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

It is embarrassing for the Government that Carillion’s chairman is an adviser to the Prime Minister on corporate responsibility. Given the level of salaries and bonuses awarded to senior management at Carillion, as well as improving the response to corporate tax evasion what will the Government do to ensure better corporate governance in UK companies?

[Mel Stride]

I say gently to the hon. Lady that she needs to check her facts, because the current head of Carillion is not an adviser to the Prime Minister. There was an appointment earlier that was terminated some months ago. As to her general points about corporate governance, this country has among the most robust corporate governance in the world, which is something this Government will continue.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

14. What assessment his Department has made of the effect of the UK leaving the European economic area on the economy and the service industry.

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[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

T8. The cost of the backlog of repairs to our historic buildings is now estimated to stand at an alarming £1.3 billion, in large part because of the changes to VAT levied on repairs. Will my right hon. Friend show that, as a Conservative, he genuinely believes in conservation and that something will be left standing for future generations to enjoy?

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mel Stride)]

I certainly agree with my right hon. Friend’s assertion of the importance of our heritage, which was recognised when last year the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport gave grants of more than £140 million in that respect. On VAT relief for repairs to historic buildings, the situation that currently pertains to EU regulations is that if we were to make changes or reductions, we would have to apply them to all buildings in the UK, at onerous cost, but that is something we can look into as and when we leave the EU.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

T2. The tampon tax fund gave a quarter of a million pounds to an anti-abortion group, so we are being taxed on our bodies to pay for people who do not think we should have control over them. Will the Minister look again at setting aside much needed funds to tackle period poverty instead?

[Mel Stride]

As the hon. Lady will know, we have committed to zero-rate tampons at the earliest opportunity. The fact that we are not doing that at the moment is due to our membership of the EU. She will also know that we are providing to women’s charities an amount equivalent to what we raise through taxing tampons.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

The Chancellor will be aware that Government debt per household is around £65,000. Another name for that debt is deferred taxation. Does the Chancellor agree that the best way to increase tax revenue and reduce our debt is to grow the economy, which is exactly what we are doing?

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

T3. Together with the Department for Work and Pensions, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has a Late, Missing and Incorrect initiative to look into the problems with real-time pay-as-you-earn information—problems that may well explain many of the errors we see in universal credit awards. The Financial Secretary gave me a helpful answer on this topic in October. What progress has he made on quantifying those three problems—late, missing and incorrect—and what hopes does he have for the improvement of RTI quality?

[Mel Stride]

As the right hon. Gentleman will know, the Late, Missing and Incorrect initiative is there to drive up the accuracy of the real-time information as it passes between employers and HMRC. As he stresses, it is important to ensuring that universal credit is rolled out effectively. On his specific question about statistics, we believe that the level is around 5% or 6% across those three areas. We are continuously driving down those figures, particularly in response to the post-implementation review.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

The European Free Trade Association, of which the UK was a founder member, would provide an excellent framework from within which to exercise a deep and special partnership with the EU. Would Her Majesty’s Government consider that as a sound way forward?