Asked by: William Bain (Labour - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent steps he has taken to address barriers to small and medium-sized enterprises participating in government procurement.
Answered by Nick Hurd
This Government has transformed central government procurement to make it more accessible to small and medium sized businesses. We are in the process of implementing Lord Young's recommendations to create an SME-friendly ‘single market' in wider public procurement, and we will go even further through reforms in the forthcoming Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill.
Asked by: William Bain (Labour - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many staff are employed in each Government department in each parliamentary constituency in Scotland.
Answered by Nick Hurd
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation
Asked by: William Bain (Labour - Glasgow North East)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, which priority investors in Royal Mail have subsequently sold all or part of their holdings of shares since the date of flotation; and what estimate he has made of the level of profits made in each case.
Answered by Michael Fallon
Maintained by Royal Mail and is subject to uncertainties (e.g. funds can hold their shares through a range of nominees/custodians).
Based on the Bloomberg register dated 23rd April, we estimate that more than half of the pilot fishing investors allocated shares remain invested and that they hold shares equal to more than 50% of their combined allocations.
Given that the timings of sales and purchases are not available on a fund by fund basis, the Department does not know, and has not made any estimate, of any profits made by these investors (other than Lazard Asset Management whose representative told the Public Accounts Committee on 30 April the level of profit it made on the sale of Royal Mail shares for its clients).
Asked by: William Bain (Labour - Glasgow North East)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what meetings or telephone calls have taken place between Ministers and officials in his Department with (a) the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, (b) BlackRock, (c) Capital Research, (d) Fidelity Worldwide, (e) GIC, (f) Henderson, (g) JP Morgan, (h) Kuwait Investment Office, (i) Lansdowne Partners, (j) Lazard Asset Management, (k) Och Ziff, Schroders, (l) Soros, (m) Standard Life, (n) Third Point and (o) Threadneedle in relation to the flotation of the Royal Mail since May 2010; and what was discussed in such meetings.
Answered by Michael Fallon
Neither Ministers in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills nor officials have discussed the Royal Mail flotation with any of these investors.
Asked by: William Bain (Labour - Glasgow North East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, which meetings or telephone calls have taken place between Ministers and officials in his Department and (a) the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, (b) BlackRock, (c) Capital Research, (d) Fidelity Worldwide, (e) GIC, (f) Henderson, (g) JP Morgan, (h) Kuwait Investment Office, (i) Lansdowne Partners, (j) Lazard Asset Management, (k) Och Ziff, Schroders, (l) Soros, (m) Standard Life, (n) Third Point and (o) Threadneedle since 2010 and what was discussed in any such discussions.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Treasury Ministers and officials have meetings with a wide variety of organisations in the public and private sectors as part of the process of policy development and delivery.
Details of ministerial and permanent secretary meetings with external organisations on departmental business are published on a quarterly basis and are available at:
Details of officials' meetings with external organisations are not held centrally and it would entail disproportionate cost to collate this information.
Asked by: William Bain (Labour - Glasgow North East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many people in each (a) region and (b) constituent part of the UK were in receipt of (i) universal credit and (ii) other in-work tax credits or benefits at the beginning of the current financial year; and if he will estimate the likely numbers of such people in each of the following two financial years.
Answered by Baroness Morgan of Cotes
The provisional award Child and Working Tax Credits statistics for December 2013, split by geography, are available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/266640/1312_Geog_sent.xls
Table 2 breaks down Tax Credit claimants by Region and Table 4 by constituency. Those in receipt of WTC are presented within the ‘WTC and CTC' and ‘With no children' columns.
Figures for the current financial year are not yet available, but HMRC are due to publish the next provisional tax credits national statistics for April 2014 on 25 April.
Forecasts of tax credit claimant numbers are not available.
Official statistics on Universal Credit were published on 19 March and can be found at:
DWP announced plans for the next stage of implementation on 5 December, and these were set out in a written ministerial statement (WMS). The WMS can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/universal-credit-progress
Statistics on numbers in receipt of other benefits are available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-2014
Asked by: William Bain (Labour - Glasgow North East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will estimate the average net change in household income, taking account of consequential changes to benefits and tax credits, for (a) single earner households (i) without children, (ii) with one child and (iii) with two or more children and (b) two-earner couple households (i) without children, (ii) with one child and (iii) with two or more children in receipt of universal credit or other tax credits or in-work benefits as a result of the increase in the personal allowance in (1) 2014-15, (2) 2015-16 and (3) 2016-17.
Answered by Baroness Morgan of Cotes
This information is not available, as the requested breakdowns have not been collated in this way.
The Government routinely publishes distributional analysis of the cumulative impact of all its measures – which includes any offsetting reductions to benefits as a result of changes to tax – in the “Impact on Households” document, the most recent of which accompanied Budget 2014.
Asked by: William Bain (Labour - Glasgow North East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what discussions he has held with financial institutions based in the UK in respect of improving tax transparency in other jurisdictions in which they or their subsidiaries operate.
Answered by David Gauke
The Government carried out a formal consultation, starting in September 2013, on the Capital Requirements Directive's tax transparency proposals for financial institutions which require country-by-country reporting. The records of the consultation are publicly available.
Asked by: William Bain (Labour - Glasgow North East)
Question
To ask the Deputy Prime Minister, what steps the Government plans to take to register tenants in the private rented sector when individual electoral registration is introduced.
Answered by Greg Clark
Five national organisations and every Electoral Registration Officer in Great Britain are sharing £4.2 million funding aimed at maximising the rate of voter registration, as part of the transition to Individual Electoral Registration.
These organisations have received funding to find new ways of reaching a range of under registered groups such as private renters and encouraging them to register to vote. Electoral Registration Officers have been asked to concentrate on areas of under registration which have historically included private renters,
On-line registration will make it more convenient to register, which will help mobile sections of the population.