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Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies
Mr. Cousins: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer with which British overseas and dependent territories the United States of America has exchange of information agreements for tax purposes. [37825]
Dawn Primarolo: The United States of America has a Tax Information Exchange Agreement with the Cayman Islands.
Mr. Cousins: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer on how many occasions in each of the last three years British regulators and official investigators have requested information from the regulatory authorities of the British overseas territories and Crown dependencies. [37826]
Ruth Kelly: Records of requests for information made to the regulatory authorities of the British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies are not maintained centrally. The Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies have powers to provide information to overseas regulators, law enforcement authorities and judicial authorities and powers to obtain the necessary information including, if necessary, by using compulsory powers.
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Carter Report
Mr. Bercow: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the submissions to the Carter report on payroll burdens; and if he will make a statement on the report. [37803]
Dawn Primarolo: Over 50 responses have been received from a wide range of interested parties, including most of the main bodies representing employers. Responses are still being received and are being reviewed.
Inland Revenue
Mr. Cousins: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many (a) complaints he has received and (b) errors he has detected in connection with the Inland Revenue's electronic lodgement service in each year since it began; and in how many cases each year breaches of security have been established. [37829]
Dawn Primarolo: The information is as follows: (a) The Chancellor of the Exchequer has received one complaint in connection with the Inland Revenue's Electronic Lodgement Service. This was in the tax year 2000–01.
(b) The Inland Revenue is constantly reviewing, updating and improving the Electronic Lodgement Service following feedback from customers, software developers and Inland Revenue staff. The Inland Revenue is not aware of any instances where tax return information has been recorded against the wrong taxpayer.
(b) The Inland Revenue takes security very seriously. All possible security measures are taken to ensure the Electronic Lodgement Service is secure. It is also constantly monitored for any potential security breaches. The Inland Revenue has no reported incidents of unauthorised access to the Electronic Lodgement Service.
VAT
Mr. Sayeed: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much VAT revenue the Treasury has received in each of the last five years from the sale of (a) audio-visual equipment and (b) consumer electronics. [38128]
Dawn Primarolo: The information is not available.
Tax Evasion
Mr. Sheerman: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what systems exist to enable members of the public to inform the Inland Revenue of cases of tax evasion. [38196]
Dawn Primarolo: Anyone who suspects someone of evading tax can report that suspicion in confidence to any local tax office. Alternatively, they can call the Inland Revenue's anti-fraud helpline on 0800 788887.
Refurbishment
Mr. Bercow: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his answer of 6 February 2002, Official Report, column 957W, what the cost of refurbishing each ministerial private office was in each year since May 1997. [37900]
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Ruth Kelly: Information at this level of detail is not available. Expenditure on all Treasury offices since May 1997 has been limited to maintenance works pending the move to new accommodation.
Treasury Building
Mr. Bacon: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his answer of 5 February 2002, Official Report, column 841W, on the Treasury Building PFI deal, what further operating costs there are for the Treasury Building under the Treasury PFI deal, other than those specified as hard services and soft services. [38031]
Mr. Bacon: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer using the Treasury's inflation assumptions for the Treasury Building PFI deal, what he estimates the total amount of cash paid by the Treasury to Exchequer Partnership will be for service costs over the lifetime of the Treasury Building PFI deal. [37866]
Ruth Kelly: As I told the hon. Member on 5 February 2002, Official Report, column 844W, the total amount of cash paid over the operating period, using HMT's inflation assumptions, will be £838.154 million. This equates to £169.3 million in net present cost terms, discounted at 6 per cent. in real terms and assuming 2.5 per cent. inflation. On the same basis, the services element would amount to £212.48 million over the operating period. This equates to £50.864 million in net present cost terms, discounted at 6 per cent. in real terms and assuming 2.5 per cent inflation. However, as its name implies, there is a single unitary payment for the provision of serviced accommodation so there is no services payment by HMT to Exchequer Partnership.
Empty Properties
Mr. Bercow: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his answer of 29 January 2002, Official Report, column 228W, what is the total area in square feet of all empty properties referred to. [37893]
Ruth Kelly: The total number of empty properties for the year 2000–01 was 30 and the total area for these was 693,531 sq ft.
Eight were disposed of during the year and these had an area of 322,110 sq ft.
This left 22 properties with an area of 371,421 sq ft. empty for the full year.
Terrorism
Mr. Martyn Jones: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the recent financial action task force plenary meeting on terrorist financing, money laundering and non-cooperative jurisdictions held in Hong Kong. [37651]
Ruth Kelly: At the financial action task force plenary meeting in Hong Kong, China made good progress in taking forward the FATF's work on terrorist financing.
The FATF plenary was followed by a successful global terrorist financing forum, attended by almost 60 jurisdictions from FATF, FATF-style regional bodies and the OGBS, as well as nine international organisations. The
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forum stressed the importance of all jurisdictions adopting and implementing the eight special recommendations on terrorist financing issued by the FATF in October 2001. The forum called on all jurisdictions in the world to participate in a self-assessment exercise against the special recommendations on the same terms as FATF members.
The FATF confirmed that in June 2002, it will initiate a process to identify jurisdictions that lack appropriate measures to combat terrorist financing. FATF members reiterated their commitment of members to assist non-members, as appropriate, to comply with the special recommendations.
The FATF also reviewed its list of non-co-operative countries and territories (NCCTs) in the fight against money laundering, and welcomed the additional progress made by a number of the 19 jurisdictions on the list. The FATF will consider progress made by NCCT countries at its next meeting in June 2002, and will consider taking counter-measures against jurisdictions that have not made adequate progress in addressing deficiencies.
Debt Rescheduling
Lynne Jones: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the obstacles are which stand in the way of debt rescheduling that he refers to on page 40 of the Treasury document "Tackling Poverty, A Global New Deal". [37942]
Mr. Boateng: Over the past three years the international community has been working hard to develop a new framework of partnership between the
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public and private sectors for preventing and managing balance of payments problems so that all parties that benefit from the international financial system play their part in maintaining stability.
However, the ability of minority creditors to litigate successfully against sovereigns in default is a serious obstacle to debt restructuring, and can exacerbate creditor co-ordination problems. Thus some form of international bankruptcy procedure may be necessary to prevent disruptive litigation by minority credits.
More generally, there is a need to clarify the roles of debtors, creditors and the official sector within the crisis resolution framework, in order to provide the right incentives for creditors to co-ordinate effectively during debt restructuring negotiations.
Suicide
Mr. Simmonds: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many deaths have occurred on average each year over the last three years in (a) England and (b) each county owing to suicide. [37733]
Ruth Kelly: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.
Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Mark Simmonds, dated 26 February 2002:
- As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your question asking how many deaths have occurred on average each year over the last 3 years in England and each county owing to suicide. (37733).
- The figures requested are given in the table below.
(28) Suicide is defined by ONS using the following codes from the International Classification of Diseases Ninth Revision: E950-E959, E980-E989, excluding E988.8
(29) Data are presented for English counties in 1998 to 2000, based on their boundaries in those years, and for former counties (based on the equivalent areas covered by current authorities.)
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