Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many and what proportion of people in the UK have private medical insurance.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Government monitors the insurance market and is responsible for setting the overall legal framework of financial services regulation.
The Government does not hold information on the amount spent on private medical cover, or on the number and proportion of people in the UK with private medical insurance.
However, data from the Office for National Statistics reports that total expenditure on voluntary health insurance was £6 billion in 2017.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much was spent on private medical health cover in the UK in 2018.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Government monitors the insurance market and is responsible for setting the overall legal framework of financial services regulation.
The Government does not hold information on the amount spent on private medical cover, or on the number and proportion of people in the UK with private medical insurance.
However, data from the Office for National Statistics reports that total expenditure on voluntary health insurance was £6 billion in 2017.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many late filing penalties HMRC collected from large companies in 2018.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The purpose of penalties is to encourage taxpayers to comply with their tax obligations, to act as a sanction for those who do not, and to reassure those who do that they will not be disadvantaged by those who do not. Penalties are not used as a revenue-raising mechanism.
Parliament determines the laws relating to tax and to whom they apply. HMRC apply those laws fairly and do not discriminate between different taxpayers or size of business.
HMRC can apply a large number of different penalties, but they break down into three broad areas:
Automatic penalties for failure to meet a time-bound obligation, such as submitting returns or making payments by a specified deadline;
Penalties for failure to meet a regulatory obligation, such as the requirement to keep certain records; and
Behaviour-based penalties for inaccurate returns and documents and failure to notify taxable status.
A penalty is not payable if a person had a reasonable excuse for failing to meet an obligation or took reasonable care to avoid submitting an inaccurate return.
HMRC do not record data on penalties issued by size of business.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many tax avoidance schemes related to the use of personal service companies HMRC successfully challenged in 2018.
Answered by Jesse Norman
This information is only available at disproportionate cost.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) do not routinely collate the number of tax avoidance schemes related to the use of personal service companies.
HMRC publishes information regarding the number of tax avoidance cases challenged in court by taxpayers in their annual Tax Assurance Commissioner’s Report. At the same time, HMRC publish a list of tax avoidance litigation decisions handed down during the period. The Report for 2018-19 is due to be published before the summer recess.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many capital infrastructure projects have been completed as part of the Government’s National Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
Since 2010, over 4,900 public and private infrastructure projects have been successfully delivered.
In particular, since 2010, the government has earmarked 158 major projects as being of national significance and a priority, including 90 listed in the National Infrastructure Delivery Plan 2016-2021. IPA tracks and publishes the delivery progress of all 158 projects, publishing a National Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline document each year. As reported in the current edition of the Pipeline, published in November 2018, the vast majority are being delivered, with 98% completed or on track to deliver.
In 2018 alone, over 400 infrastructure projects were completed and moved into operation across a number of sectors. In the North West, for example, these included major investments such as the Walney Extension wind farm capable of powering over 600,000 homes; 2km of new flood defences to protect thousands of homes in Rossall on the coast of Lancashire; and the UK’s first Proton Beam Therapy centre at Christie Hospital in Manchester.
But it is not just major projects such as these which are having a real impact on people’s lives. We are also delivering hundreds of smaller projects across the UK.