Asked by: Virginia Crosbie (Conservative - Ynys Môn)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of reducing fuel duty to help (a) consumers and (b) hauliers in response to the energy crisis.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
In recognition of high prices at the pump and the fact that fuel represents a major cost for households and businesses, including the haulage sector, the Chancellor announced at the Autumn Budget 2021 that fuel duty would remain frozen for a twelfth consecutive year.
A freeze already represents a cut in real terms, providing savings for consumers worth almost £8 billion over the next five years.
All taxes, including fuel duty, remain under review.
Asked by: Virginia Crosbie (Conservative - Ynys Môn)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will remove VAT from defibrillators in order to make it more affordable for communities to purchase that equipment.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
The Government already maintains VAT reliefs to aid the purchase of Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs), including VAT relief on purchases made by local authorities and those made through voluntary contributions, where the AED is donated to eligible charities or the NHS. Otherwise, they attract the standard rate of VAT.
Introducing any new VAT reliefs would come at a cost to the Exchequer and the Government has received over £50 billion worth of requests for relief from VAT since the EU referendum.
However, the Government keeps all taxes under constant review.
Asked by: Virginia Crosbie (Conservative - Ynys Môn)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to recover funds that have been lost to fraud related to covid-19 support schemes.
Answered by John Glen
The Government has consistently stated that fraud is totally unacceptable, and we are taking action on multiple fronts to recover money lost to error and fraud and, where necessary, take legal action on those who have sought to exploit the COVID-19 support schemes.
It was right to establish the schemes quickly and in a way that they could be accessed easily by the millions who needed support. Given the unprecedented efforts that the Government has made to protect jobs and livelihoods during this pandemic, it would have been impossible to prevent all related fraud.
In designing the COVID-19 support schemes the Government followed the leading practice of the International Public Sector Fraud Forum on dealing with fraud in an emergency context. The dedicated Government Counter Fraud Function and Centre of Expertise re-prioritised its work to focus on COVID financial support schemes. It provided fraud risk assessment support, offered expert counter fraud advice and created data driven tools to Government Departments to help prevent, detect and recover fraud. The Fraud Function continues to offer post-event assurance support to Government Departments to find and fight fraud.
Robust measures were put in place to control error and fraud in COVID-19 support schemes from their inception. For instance, to minimise the risk of fraud and error and unverified claims, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Self-Employment Income Support Scheme were designed around existing data held on HMRC’s systems.
To further bolster anti-fraud measures on HMRC-delivered COVID-19 support schemes, at the Spring Budget last year, the Government invested more than £100 million in a Taxpayer Protection Taskforce of more than 1,200 HMRC staff to combat COVID-19-related fraud. This Taskforce is expected to recover between £800 million and £1 billion from fraudulent or incorrect payments during 2021-22 and 2022-23. In addition, HMRC has so far stopped or recovered £743 million of overclaimed grants in 2020/21.
In respect of the Bounce Back Loan Scheme, the Government continues to work closely with the British Business Bank, lenders and enforcement agencies to tackle fraud and to recover as many fraudulent loans as possible. This is on top of the £2.2 billion worth of fraudulent applications that were prevented by upfront checks.
As part of the Spring Budget last year, we announced plans to significantly strengthen enforcement activity against fraudulent Bounce Back Loans, including new powers for the Insolvency Service to tackle rogue directors and investing in the National Investigation Service to investigate serious fraud.
For local authority-administered business grants, local authorities are responsible for ensuring the safe administration of grants and that appropriate measures are put in place to mitigate against the increased risks of both fraud and payment error. Guidance for the grant schemes requires that local authorities have assurance plans in place which set out the steps they would take to minimise fraud. Government has mandated pre-payment checks (company and bank account searches) as well as post-event assurance, and a Fraud Risk Assessment.
Where grants have been paid in error, non-compliantly or to a fraudster, local authorities must seek to recover these funds and return them to BEIS. If local authorities have been unable to reclaim the grant, the case may be referred to BEIS under the Debt Recovery Policy to establish the next steps.
Asked by: Virginia Crosbie (Conservative - Ynys Môn)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of extending the VAT rate of 12.5 per cent for the hospitality industry until the end of 2022.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
The temporary reduced rate of VAT was introduced on 15 July 2020 to support the cash flow and viability of around 150,000 businesses and protect over 2.4 million jobs in the hospitality and tourism sectors. As announced at Spring Budget 2021, the Government extended the 5 per cent temporary reduced rate of VAT for the tourism and hospitality sectors until the end of September 2021. On 1 October 2021, a new reduced rate of 12.5 per cent was introduced for these goods and services to help ease affected businesses back to the standard rate. This new rate will end on 31 March 2022.
This relief has cost over £8 billion and, whilst all taxes are kept under review, there are no plans to extend the 12.5 per cent reduced rate of VAT. The Government has been clear that this relief is a temporary measure designed to support the sectors that have been severely affected by COVID-19. It is appropriate that as restrictions are lifted and demand for goods and services in these sectors increases, the temporary tax reliefs are first reduced, and then removed, in order to rebuild and strengthen the public finances.
Asked by: Virginia Crosbie (Conservative - Ynys Môn)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to reduce VAT on community defibrillators and the cabinets in which they are housed to match the VAT free status of the pads and batteries.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
The Government already maintains VAT reliefs to aid the purchase of Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs), including VAT relief on purchases made by local authorities and those made through voluntary contributions, where the AED is donated to eligible charities or the NHS. Otherwise, they attract the standard rate of VAT.
Any new VAT relief would come at a cost to the Exchequer and the Government has received over £50 billion worth of requests for relief from VAT since the EU referendum.
The Government however keeps all taxes under constant review.