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22 Jun 2005 : Column 1091W—continued
Customs Officers
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what progress is being made in recruiting additional customs officers. [6479]
Dawn Primarolo: The Chancellor announced in his pre-Budget statement in December 2004 an additional £5 million for the financial year 2005–06 and an additional £15 million for the financial year 2006–07 to fund additional resources for national security at the frontier.
HMRC is currently contributing to this commitment through the redeployment of staff released through the staff efficiencies it is generating.
It is not departmental practice to discuss levels of resourcing and deployment in this activity at individual locations as such information has security considerations
Governmental Pension Payments
Mr. Mudie: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer which Government departments pay (a) annuities and (b) pensions from public funds to descendants of individuals who were granted exceptional perpetual annuity or pension payments due to their exceptional public service. [6209]
Mr. Des Browne:
The Treasury is not aware of any such payments being made by Government Departments.
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Government Spending
Mr. Tyrie: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the percentage share of total Government spending devoted to (a) social security, (b) health and (c) education has been in each year since 1995 calculated on a consistent basis. [6115]
Mr. Des Browne: A consistent series of public spending on social protection, health and education from 1987–88 to 2004–05, the latest year available, is shown in table 3.2 of "Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses (PESA) 2005" (CM6521). Total Expenditure on Services (TES), a measure of total public spending on which the functional analyses are based, is also shown in table 3.2.
Honours
Mr. Pope: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many officials currently in the Department received honours in the recent Queen's Birthday Honours List; and at what rank of honour. [5109]
John Healey: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to him today by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
Iraq
Lynne Featherstone: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the estimated total cost to date is of UK operations and assistance in Iraq, broken down by month; and if he will make a statement. [6049]
Mr. Des Browne: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) on 21 June.
Matched Funding
Stewart Hosie: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the Treasury rules are for the provision of matched funding for projects part funded by the European Union; and what the value of matched funding was for (a) the UK and (b) each nation of the UK in each year since 2001. [6383]
Mr. Ivan Lewis [holding answer 21 June 2005]: The rules for the provision of match funding for projects part funded by the European Union are set out on the DTI website at: http://www.dti.gov.uk/europe/mf2.htm.
The total UK match funding allocations for 2001–04 are set out as follows:
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National Insurance Fraud
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the estimated levels of national insurance fraud are in the UK. [6059]
Dawn Primarolo: There is currently no reliable estimate of the level of national insurance fraud.
Tax Avoidance
Dr. Kumar: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what his most recent estimate is of the amount of tax avoided by UK citizens through tax havens with connections to the UK. [5840]
Dawn Primarolo: There is no reliable estimate of the amount of UK tax avoided or evaded by the use of tax havens.
Tax avoidance and evasion damage the global economy. The UK is taking action both domestically and in co-operation with our international partners to counter avoidance schemes and protect UK tax revenues. In this regard, the UK has welcomed the commitments made by 35 jurisdictions (including UK Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories) to the OECD principles of transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes as part of the global initiative on harmful tax practices.
Tax Credits
Ms Barlow: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many families in the constituency of Hove have received (a) working tax credit and (b) child tax credit since it was introduced; how many are receiving it; how many have received overpayments; what the average (i) amount and (ii) duration of the overpayment was; how many are repaying overpayments; how many have received lower payments than they were entitled to; and what the normal procedure is to correct that. [6488]
Dawn Primarolo: Estimates of the number of in-work families (broken down by families with and without children) in each region, local authority and constituency with tax credits for 2003–04 awards, based on final family circumstances and incomes for 2003–04, appear in the HMRC statistical publication "Child and Working Tax Credits Annual statistics. 2003–04 Geographical analyses". More recent "provisional" estimates for in-work families, as at selected dates in 2004–05, in each such area appear in the publication "Child and Working Tax Credit Geographical Statistics."
Estimates of the number of overpaid and underpaid awards, including average overpayments, at 5 April 2005 after finalisation for each such area appear in the publication "Child and Working Tax Credits Annual statistics. 2003–04 Payments Geographical analyses." The estimates are based on samples and are subject to significant sampling uncertainty. All these publications can be found on the HMRC website at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/personal-tax-credits/cwtc-geog-stats.htm.
Information on the average duration of overpayments is not available. Information on the numbers of families repaying overpayments in Hove is also unavailable. Details of how overpayments are
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recovered are provided in the Department's Code of Practice 26 " What happens if we have paid you too much tax credit."
HMRC's procedure for correcting underpayments is to make a lump sum payment, as was done for all 2003–04 underpayment.
Voter Registration
Dr. Tony Wright: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what percentages of residents are registered to vote in each local authority area. [5980]
John Healey: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Tony Wright, dated 22 June 2005:
As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question concerning the percentage of residents who are registered to vote in each Local Authority area. (5980)
The percentage of residents who are registered to vote in each local authority area is not a reliable estimate of the registration rate of the eligible population: the resident population aged 18 and over is not the same as the number of people eligible to vote. However, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) does on occasion publish comparisons of the resident population of voting age (aged 18 and over) and the number of people who are registered to vote.
I am placing in the House of Commons Library a table which gives a comparison between the number of registered electors and the estimated mid-2003 population for local authorities in England and Wales. Data are given for both parliamentary electorate and local/European electorate. In order to give an estimate of the number of electors at the mid-year point, 30 June 2003, a weighted average is taken of the 1 December 2002 and 1 December 2003 electoral data.
The local/European electorate gives a better comparison than parliamentary electorate to resident population as EU citizens are included and UK citizens resident abroad are excluded from the local/European electorate. However, a number of other difficulties remain when comparing these sources. For example not everyone who is usually resident is entitled to vote (foreign citizens from outside of the EU and Commonwealth, prisoners, etc. are not eligible) and people who have more than one address may register in more than one place. In addition there is inevitably some double counting of the registered electorate as electoral registration officers vary in how quickly they remove people from the registers after they have moved away from an area or after they have died. This latter is the main reason some areas show apparent rates in excess of one hundred per cent. These factors may have a different impact from place to place.
Any comparison of these data with figures for previous years should be made carefully as electoral legislation and other changes (such as EU expansion) can change the size of the electorate.
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