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Tax Avoidance

Mr. McFall: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer which companies are known (a) to be selling or to have sold versions of the card handling scheme used to reduce

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VAT bills and (b) to be using or to have used the scheme; and how much revenue is involved in each case. [161860]

John Healey: HM Customs and Excise is debarred by statute from disclosing information about the individual affairs of taxpayers. Exemption 15 (Statutory and other restrictions) of the Open Government Code applies. However, Customs are aware of around 78 taxpayers using the card handling scheme, involving around £301 million of VAT revenue. Customs are vigorously tackling these schemes through the courts and have successfully contested a test case in the VAT and Duties Tribunal.

Tax Fraud and Evasion

Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the estimated amount of money lost in each of the last five fiscal years to tax fraud and evasion. [162224]

Dawn Primarolo [holding answer 22 March 2004]: There is no reliable estimate of the overall "tax gap" for direct taxes. Lord Grabiner in his review of the hidden economy and the OECD's Centre for Tax Policy and Administration have both concluded that it is a concept difficult if not impossible to measure.

Estimates for indirect tax losses can be found in 'Measuring and Tackling Indirect Tax Losses' (December 2003). A copy of this document has been placed in the House of Commons Library.

VAT

Brian Cotter: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many businesses his Department estimated would be lifted out of the VAT regime at the time of each increase in the annual taxable turnover limit since 1997. [162666]

John Healey: On average, annual increases in the VAT registration threshold keep around 3,000 of the smallest businesses out of the VAT system.

Estimates of the number of businesses kept out by each increase since 1997 are given in the following table:

£000

Date of increase	New threshold	Number of businesses
December 1997	49,000	200 (part year effect only)
April 1998	50,000	3,000
April 1999	51,000	3,000
April 2000	52,000	3,000
April 2001	54,000	5,000
April 2002	55,000	2,000
April 2003	56,000	2,000
April 2004	58,000	5,000

(Businesses that did not grow in real terms will be reflected in more than one year so individual estimates should not be summed)

Brian Cotter: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many small businesses have taken up the flat rate VAT scheme in each year since its introduction. [162667]

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John Healey: The VAT flat rate scheme for small businesses was introduced on 25 April 2002. There were approximately 8,000 businesses using the scheme at 31 March 2003, and around 15,000 in December 2003.

Mr. Moss: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will refund to charitable museums VAT which has been incurred on (a) purchases made possible by grant monies from the National Lottery and (b) other purchases. [162352]

John Healey: Admission of persons to premises for a charge is a business activity for VAT purposes, so a museum that charges for admissions will normally be able to recover the VAT incurred on its purchases, building maintenance and other costs. Museums that charge admission fees that are exempt from VAT are not able to recover VAT incurred on their purchases.

Under normal VAT rules, VAT incurred on goods and services relating to 'non-business' activities cannot be recovered. Free admission of persons to premises is a non-business activity for VAT purposes, therefore museums which do not charge for admission, cannot recover the VAT they incur on related purchases, irrespective of the source of the funding used to make these purchases.

However, in September 2001, the Government introduced a VAT refund scheme which allows the main national museums and galleries which do not charge admission to recover VAT they incur on their purchases. This scheme was designed to remove an obstacle VAT was creating to the delivery of the Government's 1997 manifesto commitment that there should be free access to the main national museums and galleries.

The Chancellor has also announced in this year's Budget that the commitment to achieve free access has been an outstanding success and that, building on this success and in light of the Goodison Review, the Government will now consider the issue of extending the free access commitment for the main national museums and galleries, and the VAT refund scheme that has helped to deliver it, to university museums in the context of the forthcoming Spending Review.

Working Tax Credit

Mr. Denham: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many families are receiving the child care element of working tax credit; what the cost has been to date; and what proportion of families with children of eligible age this represents. [161527]

Dawn Primarolo [holding answer 17 March 2004]: The number of families benefiting from the childcare element of the Working Tax Credit, and their average help with childcare costs through this element, appear in Table 4.4 of each issue of "Child and Working Tax Credits. Quarterly Statistics."

Each issue of this publication appears on the Inland Revenue web site, at www.inlandrevenue.aov.uk/stats/personal-tax-credits/menu.htm.

The childcare element is available to single parents working for at least 16 hours per week, and to couples both working for at least 16 hours per week or where one works for at least 16 hours per week and the other is incapacitated, or a hospital inpatient or is in prison. The

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element covers eligible childcare costs incurred on children up to 1 September 2004 following their 15th birthday (16th if disabled).

Child benefit records indicate that at December 2003 there were 6.4 million families with at least one child whose 15th birthday was due to fall after 1 September 2004.

SCOTLAND

Asbestos

Malcolm Bruce: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list the buildings occupied by his staff which require (a) remedial work on and (b) removal of asbestos; what that work will cost; what budgets are available for this work for (i) 2004 and (ii) 2005; and what budget is available for future asbestos surveys. [159649]

Mrs. McGuire: No buildings occupied by the Scotland Office currently require work related to the removal of asbestos. The costs of any work required in future will be met from within the administration costs for the Office.

Malcolm Bruce: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what proportion of buildings occupied by his staff have been surveyed for the purpose of identifying the presence of asbestos prior to the implementation of the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 2002. [159658]

Mrs. McGuire: The Scotland Office has been complying with the relevant provisions of the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 2002 for buildings occupied by its staff. Final work will be undertaken to check for the presence of asbestos prior to the introduction of Regulation 4 in May 2004.

Common Fisheries Policy

Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what recent discussions he has had with the First Minister on the effects of reform of the Common Fisheries Policy. [162303]

Mrs. McGuire: My right hon. Friend and the First Minister discuss a wide range of matters.

Departmental Communications

Matthew Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what the total expenditure on communications for the Department has been in 2003–04, broken down by expenditure on (a) Government Information and Communications Service staff and (b) other staff, broken down by (i) press officers.(ii) special advisers and (iii) others. [158199]

Mrs. McGuire: The Scotland Office spent £180,582 on communications for the period up to the end of February 2004. This expenditure is attributable to press office staff (who are also members the Government Information and Communications Service) and special advisers. Details of the costs of special advisers are given on an annual basis. Information for the financial year 2003–04 will be published in due course.

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Mineral Water Industry

Annabelle Ewing: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what estimate his Department has made of the number of jobs in Scotland dependent upon the mineral water industry. [162989]

Mrs. McGuire: The Scotland Office has made no such estimation of job numbers dependent upon the mineral water industry.

The most recent Scottish Executive figures illustrate that the wider bottled water and soft drinks industry directly employed 1,933 people in Scotland in 2002.

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