Every parliamentary written question tabled by Harriett Baldwin this session, with the full answer and department. Back to the MP page.
Showing 21–38 of 38 · Treasury
How many cheques were issued by HMRC to (a) people and (b) companies in the 2024-25 financial year.
In 2024-25, HMRC issued 2,719,522 cheques to people and companies. HMRC does not keep separate figures for cheques sent to people and companies.
What the cost to the public purse was of administering cheque payments across government in 2024-25 financial year.
The information requested is not held by HM Treasury and could only be produced at a disproportionate cost due to the scope and complexity of analysis required.
What estimate she has made of the number of people who claimed the remittance basis and will use the temporary repatriation facility in the last year.
The numbers of non-domiciled taxpayers taxed on the remittance basis are published in Table 5 of the latest Non Domicile Taxpayer Statistics accessible for download here. The latest available year for numbers taxed on the remittance basis is tax year ending 2022. The Temporary Repatriation facility began in 2025/26 so no data is held for the past year.
How many people claimed the remittance basis in each of the last five tax years.
The numbers of non-domiciled taxpayers taxed on the remittance basis are published in Table 5 of the latest Non Domicile Taxpayer Statistics accessible for download here. The latest available year for numbers taxed on the remittance basis is tax year ending 2022.
What estimate she has made of the number of international investors in the UK.
The ONS is responsible for collecting and publishing official statistics related to the economy, population, and society at national, regional and local levels. The ONS publish annual statistics on inward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), which are available on their website. The ONS do not publish figures on the number of international investors in the UK.
What assessment she has made on the potential impact of the Autumn Budget 2024 on the levels of employment of women in the (a) hairdressing and (b) beauty industries.
The Government has taken a number of difficult but necessary decisions on tax, welfare, and spending to fix the public finances and fund public services.The Government has set out the impacts of the policy changes from Autumn Budget 2024 in the usual way.The Office for Budget Responsibility’s October 2024 forecast, which considers the impact of all the Budget measures, expects the employment level to increase from 33.1 million in 2024 to 34.3 million in 2029.
If she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of trends in the level of disguised employment in the (a) hairdressing and (b) beauty industries; and what steps she plans to take with Cabinet colleagues to help tackle disguised employment.
HMRC is committed to ensuring that the tax system operates fairly and efficiently and creates a level playing field for compliant businesses. Most businesses pay what they owe but a minority fail to register with HMRC or only declare a portion of their earnings.HMRC is committed to tackling false self-employment and will investigate evidence suggesting businesses have misclassified individuals for tax purposes. In these cases, HMRC will take steps to ensure they pay the right Income Tax and National Insurance contributions.HMRC recognises that some customers can find it hard to understand their tax obligations. HMRC is developing and testing new educational material specific to the hair and beauty sector to explain better the rent-a-chair model making it easy for customers to get things right and reduce mistakes. HMRC is planning for this to be ready for publication on GOV.UK in the spring. HMRC is continuing to work on updates to the Taxable Persons manual and these will be published in due course.
Whether the new lower employers' National Insurance threshold applies to retained fire crews.
To repair the public finances and help raise the revenue required to increase funding for public services, the government has taken the difficult decision to increase employer National Insurance. The rate of employer NICs will increase from 13.8% to 15% and the per-employee threshold at which employers start to pay National Insurance (the Secondary Threshold) will be reduced to £5,000.At the provisional Local Government Finance Settlement, the government announced an additional £515 million of support for local government to manage the impact of changes to employer NICs announced at the Autumn Budget. Fire and rescue authorities will receive a share of the overall funding provided to local government. Payments will be unringfenced to allow funding to be used across direct, commissioned, and externally provided local services.
Pursuant to the Answer of 23 January 2024 to Question 24423 on Employers' Contributions, how many and what proportion of the employers that will see a change in their employer National Insurance have (a) one, (b) two, (c) three, (d) four and (e) more than five employees.
As is the case with all tax policies, the Government has published a detailed assessment of the policy in the Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN). This includes impacts on the exchequer, the economy, individuals, households and families, equalities, businesses including civil society organisations, and details on monitoring and evaluation. The TIIN can be found below:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-the-class-1-national-insurance-contributions-secondary-threshold-the-secondary-class-1-national-insurance-contributions-rate-and-the-empl The Tax Information and Impact Note sets out that around 250,000 employers will see their Secondary Class 1 NICs liability decrease and around 940,000 will see it increase. Around 820,000 employers will see no change. Information on employers listed is not available as we do not hold the breakdown requested by employer size.
Pursuant to the Answer of 23 January 2024 to Question 24423 on Employers' Contributions, how many and what proportion of the 865,000 employers listed have (a) one, (b) two, (c) three, (d) four and (e) more than five employees.
As is the case with all tax policies, the Government has published a detailed assessment of the policy in the Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN). This includes impacts on the exchequer, the economy, individuals, households and families, equalities, businesses including civil society organisations, and details on monitoring and evaluation. The TIIN can be found below:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-the-class-1-national-insurance-contributions-secondary-threshold-the-secondary-class-1-national-insurance-contributions-rate-and-the-empl The Tax Information and Impact Note sets out that around 250,000 employers will see their Secondary Class 1 NICs liability decrease and around 940,000 will see it increase. Around 820,000 employers will see no change. Information on employers listed is not available as we do not hold the breakdown requested by employer size.
Pursuant to the Answer of 23 January 2024 to Question 24423 on Employers' Contributions, how many and what proportion of the half of employers that will see no change have (a) one, (b) two, (c) three, (d) four and (e) more than five employees.
As is the case with all tax policies, the Government has published a detailed assessment of the policy in the Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN). This includes impacts on the exchequer, the economy, individuals, households and families, equalities, businesses including civil society organisations, and details on monitoring and evaluation. The TIIN can be found below:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-the-class-1-national-insurance-contributions-secondary-threshold-the-secondary-class-1-national-insurance-contributions-rate-and-the-empl The Tax Information and Impact Note sets out that around 250,000 employers will see their Secondary Class 1 NICs liability decrease and around 940,000 will see it increase. Around 820,000 employers will see no change. Information on employers listed is not available as we do not hold the breakdown requested by employer size.
Pursuant to the Answer of 23 January 2024 to Question 24423 on Employers' Contributions, if she will provide disaggregated cost figures for the hospitality sector for the same period of time.
As is the case with all tax policies, the Government has published a detailed assessment of the policy in the Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN). This includes impacts on the exchequer, the economy, individuals, households and families, equalities, businesses including civil society organisations, and details on monitoring and evaluation. The TIIN can be found below:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-the-class-1-national-insurance-contributions-secondary-threshold-the-secondary-class-1-national-insurance-contributions-rate-and-the-empl The Tax Information and Impact Note sets out that around 250,000 employers will see their Secondary Class 1 NICs liability decrease and around 940,000 will see it increase. Around 820,000 employers will see no change. Information on employers listed is not available as we do not hold the breakdown requested by employer size.
Pursuant to the Answer of 23 January 2024 to Question 24423 on Employers' Contributions, if she will provide disaggregated cost figures for the retail sector for the same period.
As is the case with all tax policies, the Government has published a detailed assessment of the policy in the Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN). This includes impacts on the exchequer, the economy, individuals, households and families, equalities, businesses including civil society organisations, and details on monitoring and evaluation. The TIIN can be found below:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-the-class-1-national-insurance-contributions-secondary-threshold-the-secondary-class-1-national-insurance-contributions-rate-and-the-empl The Tax Information and Impact Note sets out that around 250,000 employers will see their Secondary Class 1 NICs liability decrease and around 940,000 will see it increase. Around 820,000 employers will see no change. Information on employers listed is not available as we do not hold the breakdown requested by employer size.
Whether her Department offers its staff shared parental leave from their first working day.
HMT staff must have worked continuously for the Civil Service for at least 26 weeks to be eligible for shared parental leave and pay. Staff can also take unpaid parental leave in addition to shared parental leave if they meet the eligibility criteria. The Employment Rights Bill will remove this eligibility requirement and staff will be entitled to unpaid parental leave from their first working day. HMT will implement this legislative change when it comes into force.
With reference to line 26 on page 118 of the Autumn Budget 2024, HC 295, published on 30 October 2024, if she will disaggregate the measures of (a) changing the Secondary Threshold to £5,000 and (b) increasing the employer National Insurance rate by 1.2% for each financial year to 2029-30.
The static revenue of increasing the Employer National Insurance rate from 13.8% to 15%, and reducing the Secondary Threshold to a £5,000 annual equivalent are set out below. (£m)2025-262026-272027-282028-292029-30Revenue from increasing the Employer NIC rate from 13.8% to 15%11,10511,44011,77012,08012,440Revenue from reducing the Secondary Threshold to £5,00017,23017,35017,46018,04018,600 This is a subset of the static costing published in table 5.1 of the HMT Budget documents, and table 3.2 of the OBR Economic and Fiscal Outlook, October 2024, and does not account for direct or indirect effects from the wider package. The cost of increasing the rate is calculated before any other parts of the announced package of Employer NIC changes have been calculated – and so assumes the Secondary Threshold and Employment Allowance remain unchanged. The cost of reducing the Secondary Threshold accounts for the higher rate of Employer NICs, but does not account for changes to the Employment Allowance. In addition to the changes outlined above, the Government has protected the smallest businesses from the impact of the increase to Employer National Insurance by increasing the Employment Allowance from £5,000 to £10,500, which means that 865,000 employers will pay no NICs at all next year, more than half of employers will see no change or will gain overall from this package, and all eligible employers will be able to employ up to four full-time workers on the National Living Wage and pay no employer NICs.
What information she holds on the number of people who have taken advantage of the ability to remove £500 from their pension scheme to pay for financial advice in each of the last five financial years.
We do not hold the information requested. Neither schemes nor individuals are required to provide HMRC with this information.
What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Autumn Budget 2024 on the (a) number of family businesses and (b) employment levels within those businesses.
The Government inherited a difficult fiscal situation and so we are asking businesses to contribute to fixing the foundations and our public services. As part of the decisions made at Budget, the Government assessed the impact of measures introduced on businesses, including by size of business. The Government has protected the smallest businesses from the impact of the increase to Employer National Insurance by increasing the Employment Allowance from £5,000 to £10,500. The Government also announced changes to inheritance tax, including reforms to business property relief (BPR). The Government has protected smaller family businesses from BPR changes, providing a very significant level of relief with the first £1 million of business assets continuing to receive 100% relief and then 50% thereafter. In 2021-22, the median value of assets qualifying for business property relief was £200,000, and 87 per cent of estates claimed for business property below £1 million. The Office for Budget Responsibility’s October 2024 forecast, which takes into account impacts from policy measures announced in the Budget, expects the employment level to increase from 33.1 million in 2024 to 34.3 million in 2029.
With reference to point 28 of Table 5.1 of the Autumn Budget 2024, published on 30 October 2024, HC 295, whether unmarried couples will be liable for inheritance tax on Death-in-Service benefits over £325,000 payable on a death before retirement age.
As announced at Autumn Budget 2024, from 6 April 2027 most unused pension funds and death benefits will be included within the value of a person’s estate for Inheritance Tax purposes.The inheritance tax treatment of death-in-service depends on where the relevant funds are held and how they are paid out. Some types of schemes make death-in-service payments from a group life insurance policy held in trust and therefore not within the scope on that basis. Whilst other (often defined benefit) schemes will make death in service payments as a pension lump sum, which will be in scope.This change will ensure that there is consistent tax treatment, regardless of whether the scheme is discretionary or non-discretionary. For example, benefits from non-discretionary defined benefit schemes, such as the NHS, are already within the scope of inheritance tax.All estates have a minimum nil-rate band of £325,000. In addition to this, an estate may qualify for up to £175,000 of residence nil-rate band, where the deceased is passing on a qualifying residence to their direct descendants. This means that qualifying estate can pass on up to £500,000 before any Inheritance Tax will be due, regardless of whether the deceased was married or unmarried when they died.