Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of a cap on the Cycle to Work scheme on a) employees’ ability to access e-bikes and e-cargo bikes and b) disabled employees’ ability to access specially-adapted cycles.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government keeps all taxes under review as part of the policy making process. The Chancellor will announce any changes to the tax system at fiscal events in the usual way.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she has taken to help support small businesses to understand the Making Tax Digital for Income Tax scheme.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax is designed to help businesses keep on top of their tax affairs and support their wider productivity.
The government is undertaking a range of activities to ensure that those needing to use MTD for Income Tax understand the requirements and can do so successfully from April 2026. A communications campaign is underway, raising customer awareness of MTD for Income Tax and encouraging agents and customers to sign up for testing.
HMRC are supporting customers and agents with a suite of guidance products, direct communications, webinars, live events and social media activity to help them to prepare.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Making Tax Digital for Income Tax scheme on sole traders who are digitally excluded.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The government recognises that not everyone is able to interact with HMRC digitally. Customers that consider themselves digitally excluded will be able to apply for an exemption from Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. HMRC will provide further information about the exemption process later in 2025.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what progress she has made on developing a central finance facility for credit unions.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Government has made clear its strong support for the credit union sector, recognising the value that credit unions bring to their members in local communities across the country in providing savings products and affordable credit.
On 14 November, the Chancellor announced new measures to support the growth of the credit union and mutuals sector. Following this Mansion House speech, HM Treasury has concluded a call for evidence on potential reforms to credit union common bonds, supported the industry-led Mutual and Co-operative Sector Business Council, and commissioned the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) to publish a report on the mutuals landscape by the end of 2025.
There are currently no plans to develop a central finance facility for credit unions. The Government continues to engage with the sector and will keep all issues, like central finance functions, under review.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when HMRC plans to respond to the email of 9 December 2024 from the office of the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
A response to the member for Brentford and Isleworth regarding their correspondence of 9 December 2024 is being prepared and will be provided by 24 January 2025. I apologise for the delay in responding to the Honourable Member.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate she has made of the number of credit unions operating in (a) London and (b) England.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Government has made clear its strong support for the credit union sector, recognising the value that credit unions bring to their members in local communities across the country in providing savings products and affordable credit.
The Chancellor announced new measures to support the growth of the credit union and mutuals sector in her Mansion House speech on 14 November. This included publishing a call for evidence on the potential to reform common bonds for credit unions in Great Britain, asking the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) to produce a report on the mutuals landscape by the end of 2025, and welcoming the establishment of an industry-led Mutual and Co-operative Business Council. Together, these actions reinforce the Government’s commitment to support the credit union and mutuals sector, and help it grow to drive innovation and economic growth across the country.
The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) publishes quarterly statistics relating to credit unions in the United Kingdom. According to this latest data, there are currently 140 credit unions operating in England. Whilst HM Treasury does not hold data on the number of credit unions operating in London, all registered mutuals are listed publicly on the Mutuals Public Register, which is managed by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to increase the number of credit unions operating in England.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Government has made clear its strong support for the credit union sector, recognising the value that credit unions bring to their members in local communities across the country in providing savings products and affordable credit.
The Chancellor announced new measures to support the growth of the credit union and mutuals sector in her Mansion House speech on 14 November. This included publishing a call for evidence on the potential to reform common bonds for credit unions in Great Britain, asking the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) to produce a report on the mutuals landscape by the end of 2025, and welcoming the establishment of an industry-led Mutual and Co-operative Business Council. Together, these actions reinforce the Government’s commitment to support the credit union and mutuals sector, and help it grow to drive innovation and economic growth across the country.
The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) publishes quarterly statistics relating to credit unions in the United Kingdom. According to this latest data, there are currently 140 credit unions operating in England. Whilst HM Treasury does not hold data on the number of credit unions operating in London, all registered mutuals are listed publicly on the Mutuals Public Register, which is managed by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of HMRC's processing of refund requests for taxpayers.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
HMRC aims to process all refunds and repayments within a reasonable timeframe. The processing of these is recorded as part of HMRC’s post turnaround measure. HMRC’s service standard for post turnaround is 80% of customer correspondence cleared within 15 working days of receipt. HMRC’s performance has been 77% from April to August 2024.
Post performance is published monthly and can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmrc-monthly-performance-reports#reporting-year-2024-to-2025.
To improve their services and meet published standards HMRC have recently deployed additional customer service advisers. They expect to meet their post service standards in the second half of 2024-25 as the new advisers are trained and up to speed.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the Answer of 16 May 2023 to question 183900 on Sanitary Products: VAT, what steps he has taken to review whether the zero-rating for VAT on period products is being passed on by retailers to women in the last 12 months.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The government monitors publicly available data to assess the extent to which reliefs are passed through after their introduction, and is keen to ensure that the savings achieved through tax reliefs reach the intended recipients. We have engaged with stakeholders over the last 12 months to ensure they commit to passing on the savings realised from the zero-rating of period products, including following the expansion of the relief to period underwear in January 2024.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 16 May 2023 to Question 183901 on Sanitary Protection: VAT, what steps his Department is taking to ascertain whether the savings of zero-rating VAT on period products are being passed on from retailers to consumers.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
As per my answer to Question 183901, the Government is looking into whether this important zero-rating is being passed on by retailers to women as intended. The Government keeps all taxes and reliefs under continuous review, considering a range of evidence, including data and research on factors like pricing, when assessing the effects of changes to the tax system. While the Government does not control prices, a VAT relief is able to contribute to the conditions for price reductions, and the Government continues to monitor the effects of this relief to aid the policymaking process. HMT and HMRC work closely together to integrate the findings of their monitoring and evaluation processes into future tax relief policy.