Written questions by Evans.

With reference to her Oral Statement of 26 March 2025 on the Spring Statement, Official Report, column 945, what proportion of the £150 million included in the transformation fund will be spent on the abolition of NHS England.

As announced at Spring Statement the government has allocated £150 million for government employee exit schemes. Information can be found in the Spring Statement supporting documentation here:https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67e3ec2df356a2dc0e39b488/E03274109_HMT_Spring_Statement_Mar_25_Web_Accessible_.pdf. This will be match-funded by a further £150 million from Departments. On 13 March, the Prime Minister announced that NHS England will be brought back into the Department of Health and Social Care to form a new joint centre. Exit schemes will enable delivery of leaner, smarter, more efficient government, whilst delivering savings over the medium term. Departments will bid for funding from this central pot in order to run exit schemes, and therefore the exact details of which Departments will benefit from this and how this will be spent is not yet known.

With reference to the Spring Statement 2025, whether the abolition of NHS England will be entirely funded by the £150 million included in the transformation fund.

As announced at Spring Statement the government has allocated £150 million for government employee exit schemes. Information can be found in the Spring Statement supporting documentation here:https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67e3ec2df356a2dc0e39b488/E03274109_HMT_Spring_Statement_Mar_25_Web_Accessible_.pdf. This will be match-funded by a further £150 million from Departments. On 13 March, the Prime Minister announced that NHS England will be brought back into the Department of Health and Social Care to form a new joint centre. Exit schemes will enable delivery of leaner, smarter, more efficient government, whilst delivering savings over the medium term. Departments will bid for funding from this central pot in order to run exit schemes, and therefore the exact details of which Departments will benefit from this and how this will be spent is not yet known.

With reference to the Spring Statement 2025, which Departments will be impacted by the £150 million for Government employee exit schemes.

As announced at Spring Statement the government has allocated £150 million for government employee exit schemes. Information can be found in the Spring Statement supporting documentation here:https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67e3ec2df356a2dc0e39b488/E03274109_HMT_Spring_Statement_Mar_25_Web_Accessible_.pdf. This will be match-funded by a further £150 million from Departments. Exit schemes will enable delivery of leaner, smarter, more efficient government, whilst delivering savings over the medium term. Departments will bid for funding from this central pot in order to run exit schemes, and therefore the exact details of which departments will benefit from this and how this will be spent is not yet known.

With reference to the Spring Statement 2025, how many redundancies from NHS England will be paid for from the £150 million included in the transformation fund.

As announced at Spring Statement the government has allocated £150 million for government employee exit schemes. Information can be found in the Spring Statement supporting documentation here:https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67e3ec2df356a2dc0e39b488/E03274109_HMT_Spring_Statement_Mar_25_Web_Accessible_.pdf. This will be match-funded by a further £150 million from Departments. On 13 March, the Prime Minister announced that NHS England will be brought back into the Department of Health and Social Care to form a new joint centre. Exit schemes will enable delivery of leaner, smarter, more efficient government, whilst delivering savings over the medium term. Departments will bid for funding from this central pot in order to run exit schemes, and therefore the exact details of which Departments will benefit from this and how this will be spent is not yet known.

What discussions she has had with HMRC on the potential impact of flexible working arrangements on (a) length of call wait times, (b) stability of phone and WiFi connections, (c) privacy and (d) ease of call escalation for customers.

HMRC supports flexible working. HMRC expects most colleagues to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in the office. They can spend up to 40% of their time working at home if they wish, provided they can do their job effectively from home and this fits with the department’s needs. Analysis shows that HMRC customer advisers are similarly productive at home and in the office. Advisers answered 15.9 calls on average per day at home, compared to 16.3 in the office (based on data between October 2022 to December 2022). Staff working from home connect to the HMRC Network via wi-fi (or a wired connection), using a secure and performant VPN Connection. Robust monitoring is in place that provides full visibility of both the connection performance and call quality, for all HMRC devices and calls. HMRC colleagues are held to the same performance expectations whether they are working in the office or at home, and receive the same induction and mandatory learning around data protection and security. Escalations/ call transfers can take place between a variety of HMRC teams in multiple locations. The systems used by colleagues working from home have the same functionality as those used when working in the office. Therefore there is no impact on call escalation for customers.

Whether she has had discussions with Cabinet colleagues on using funding reallocated from the Overseas Development Assistance budget to fund the Chagos settlement.

FCDO and the MOD are the lead departments for the Chagos agreement, and must balance any commitments under an agreement against wider priorities in their budgets – and in line with the Managing Public Money framework. OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) guidelines on ODA eligibility will continue to be applied in the usual way to any financial obligations arising from an agreement. The Prime Minister recently announced that the UK will spend 2.5% of GDP on defence by the 2027/28 financial year, funded by a reduction in ODA spending to the equivalent of 0.3% of GNI.

If she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of the finding of the Adam Smith Institute millionaire tracker.

The Government is committed to making sure the wealthiest in our society pay their fair share of tax. That is why the Chancellor announced a series of reforms at Autumn Budget 2024 to help fix the public finances in as fair a way as possible, while ensuring the UK tax system remains internationally competitive. As part of this, the Government is increasing the main rates of Capital Gains Tax (CGT) to 18 and 24 per cent. The Government also confirmed its plans to remove the outdated concept of domicile status from the tax system and to replace it with a new residence-based regime from 6 April 2025. This will ensure that everyone who makes their home in the UK pays their taxes here. These and other decisions announced at the Budget will help repair the public finances and fund public services such as the NHS and education.

What account she took of (a) numbers of claimants of Business Property Relief and (b) reasons for Business Property Relief claims in the introduction of a £1m threshold to (a) Agricultural and (b) Business Property

The Government published information about the reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief at www.gov.uk/government/publications/agricultural-property-relief-and-business-property-relief-reforms. It is expected that up to around 2...

What proportion of the revenue (a) raised by changes to employee national insurance contributions and (b) announced for the NHS at Autumn Budget 2024 will be allocated to fund non employee national insurance contrib

At Autumn Statement, the Chancellor outlined the Government’s commitment to ensuring the sustainability and productivity of the NHS. As part of this, HM Treasury have allocated £22.6 billion to the NHS to support productivity improvements, upgrade IT syst...

With reference to paragraph 2.40 of the Autumn Budget 2024, published on 30 October, what recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on the potential impact of changes to N

Resource spending for the Department of Health and Social Care is set to increase by £22.6 billion in 2025-26 compared to 2023-24 outturn, providing a real-terms growth rate of 4% for the NHS, the largest since before 2010 excluding Covid-19 years. The Go...

With reference to the Autumn Budget 2024, published on 30 October 2024, HC 295, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of changes to (a) agricultural property relief and (b) business rate relief on lon

The Government has published information about the reforms to agricultural property relief at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/what-are-the-changes-to-agricultural-property-relief#:~:text=From%206%20April%202026%2C%20the,rather%20than%20the%20standard%2...

If she will make an assessment of the potential impact of terminating the furnished holiday lettings tax regime on the tourism sector.

The Government will abolish the Furnished Holiday Lets (FHLs) tax regime from April 2025. This will equalise the tax treatment of FHL and non-FHL landlords’ income and gains. The Government wants to support visitor accommodation alongside housing for long...

With reference to the oral contribution of 12 September 2024 from the Leader of the House in response to the Question asked by the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth, if she will publish the Government’s impact a

On 29 July, the Government announced that, as of 1 January 2025, all education services and vocational training provided by a private school in the UK for a charge will be subject to VAT at the standard rate of 20 per cent.This was a tough but necessary d...

If she will make an assessment of the potential impact on growth and investment of changes in levels of the number of people with non-domiciled tax status resident in the UK.

The government has published a policy note setting out its plan to remove the concept of domicile status from the tax system, and to implement a new residence-based regime which is internationally competitive and focused on attracting the best talent and ...

With reference to the report entitled UK Payment Markets Report, published by UK Finance in July 2024, what discussions she has had with (a) Cabinet colleagues, (b) financial institutions and (c) business groups on (i) trends in the numbers of and (ii) support for UK adults who mainly use cash for transactions.

While the ongoing trend in payments in the UK has been away from cash and towards digital payment methods, the government recognises that cash continues to be used by millions of people across the UK, including those who may be in vulnerable groups or who otherwise rely mainly on cash. In May 2022, the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Financial Lives Survey estimated that 3.1 million people paid for everything in cash over the previous year. In recognition of the importance of cash access, it has been protected in UK law. The Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 provides the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) with responsibility and powers to seek to ensure reasonable provision of cash withdrawal and deposit facilities, with reference to the government’s stated objectives for protecting cash access as set out in a government Policy Statement. The FCA must also seek to ensure that there is reasonable provision of free withdrawal and deposit facilities in relation to personal current accounts, so that those who rely on cash are protected. In July 2024, the FCA published its final rules setting out its approach to regulating access to cash, which come into force on 18 September.