| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
5 Jun 2006 : Column 180W—continued
Estimates of annual growth in these regions for the years 1997 to 2004, based on data published by the ONS in December 2005, are shown in table A below.
| Table A - Growth in headline( 2) GVA at current basic prices by region, 1997 and 2004( 3) | |
| Region( 4) | Growth in GVA 1997 to 2004 (Percentage) |
| (1 )Information presented here is gross value added (GVA) which is gross domestic product (GDP) less taxes (plus subsidies) on products. (2 )The headline regional GVA series for this publication have been calculated using a five-period moving average. (3 )2004 data is provisional. (4 )Wales and Scotland are NUTS (Nomenclature of Units for Territorial Statistics) regions, but the ONS does not recognise the combined region of London and the South East as a standard geography. | |
HM Revenue and Customs
Mr. Hands: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the projections of staffing levels in HM Revenue and Customs are for the next three years. [73634]
Dawn Primarolo: Current projected levels of full time equivalent staff in post in HM Revenue and Customs are:
| Number | |
No detailed projection has yet been made of staff levels at 1 April 2009.
Mr. Hands: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the impact of staff reductions in HM Revenue and Customs on tax enforcement. [73635]
Dawn Primarolo: HMRC are satisfied that significant improvements in productivity from improvements in risk processes, re-designing audit and inspection processes, reforming HMRC’s range of interventions, and developing better electronic tools for communicating with taxpayers will not only mitigate the impact of the staff reduction in tax enforcement but also result in an overall improvement in performance.
Mr. Hands: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many people were employed full-time by HM Revenue and Customs in each year since 1997. [74496]
Dawn Primarolo: HM Revenue and Customs became a legal entity on 18 April 2005. Before then its business had been conducted by the Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise.
The numbers of staff employed in civil service departments and agencies, including the Inland Revenue, HM Customs and Excise and HM Revenue and Customs are available on the Cabinet Office’s “Civil Service Statistics” website at http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/management/statistics/index.asp. The effects of changes in departmental responsibilities on staff numbers are also available on the website.
Illegal Immigrants
Mr. Hayes: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many illegal immigrants have been discovered to be employed by his Department in each year since 2001; in what capacities they were employed; how many were discovered as part of a criminal investigation; and what the nature of the charges brought against them were. [73960]
John Healey: No illegal immigrants have been discovered to be employed by HM Treasury since 2001.
Inheritance Tax
Philip Davies: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the cost of abolishing inheritance tax; and if he will make a statement. [74123]
Dawn Primarolo: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave on 18 April 2006, Official Report, column 551W to the hon. Member for Harwich (Mr. Carswell).
Junior Doctors
Mrs. Iris Robinson: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will re-designate essential expenses of junior doctors as tax-deductible. [74370]
Dawn Primarolo: Employed junior doctors are subject to the same rules as any other employee and there are no plans to introduce special rules.
Landfill Taxes
Mr. Paul Goodman: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimates he has made of the impact of landfill taxes on the amount of waste going to landfill in each area of the UK. [75182]
John Healey: The increases in the standard rate of landfill tax are contributing to a move away from over reliance on landfill in the UK. Provisional figures show that over the period 1997-98 to 2005-06 the total amount of waste landfilled in the UK at sites registered for landfill tax fell by 25 per cent. while the amount of active waste landfilled fell by 14 per cent.
Regional assessments of the impact of landfill tax are not available.
Large Print Documents
Joan Walley: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what progress has been made towards making all HM Revenue and Customs literature available in large print format. [73821]
Dawn Primarolo: HM Revenue and Customs’ (HMRC) Visually Impaired Media Unit (VIMU) will produce on request any piece of HMRC literature in alternative formats for the visually impaired. This includes large print, Braille and audio versions, and the offer of home visits when more suitable.
Missing Trader Intra-community Fraud
Mr. Davey: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what (a) human and (b) financial resources committed to tackling missing trader intra-community (MTIC) fraud; and what plans he has to allocate more (i) existing and (ii) new staff to investigate MTIC fraud; [74784]
(2) whether he has developed a specific strategy for tackling missing trader intra-community fraud. [74789]
Dawn Primarolo: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 17 May 2006, Official Report, column 1090W.
HMRC have had a strategy for tackling missing trader intra-community (MTIC) VAT fraud since September 2000. In recent months they have
committed significant additional resources to strengthen their strategy, including re-deploying 420 compliance staff and 55 detection staff, and recruiting 48 new criminal investigators. There are now over 1,000 staff engaged in tackling MTIC fraud. HMRC will continue to review their strategy, including the deployment of resources, to ensure that it remains effective. HMRC’s financial accounts do not provide financial resource figures for individual strategies.
Mr. Davey: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) how the revenue lost through (a) VAT and (b) missing trader intra-community fraud is measured; [74785]
(2) what estimate he has made of (a) attempted and (b) actual missing trader intra-community fraud in each year since 2000; and what the basis for such an estimate is. [74787]
Dawn Primarolo: HMRC’s latest estimates of attempted MTIC fraud, overall VAT losses, and the methodology for estimating the latter were published in ‘Measuring Indirect Tax Losses—2005’, which is available from the following website: www.hmrc.gov.uk/pbr2005/mitl2005.pdf.
The methodology for estimating MTIC fraud was first published in ‘Measuring Indirect Tax Fraud—2001’. This was updated in ‘Measuring and Tackling Indirect Tax Losses—2004’, which can be found on the following website: http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp. portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageVAT_Show Content&id=HMCE_PROD_011582&propertyType =document.
Neonatal Mortality Rate
Ms Keeble: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the neonatal mortality rate among (a) premature babies and (b) all births was in each of the last five years. [74658]
John Healey: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated 5 June 2006:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking what the neonatal mortality rate among (a) premature babies and (b) all births was in each of the last five years. (74658)
Information on the neonatal mortality rate among premature babies is not available as gestation is not collected at registration on live births in England and Wales.
The neonatal mortality rate among all live births in England and Wales from 2000 to 2004 (the latest year for which figures are available) are shown in the table below.
| Neonatal mortality rate( 1) , England and Wales, 2000-2004 | |
| Neonatal mortality rate( 1) | |
| (1 )Per 1,000 live births | |
Public Spending
Mr. Redwood: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the ratio of public spending to gross domestic product was in each of the UK regions in 2005-06. [74807]
Mr. Timms: Total identifiable public expenditure on services by country and region is set out in table 7.1 of “Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2006” (Cm 6811). The latest outturn data available are for 2004-05 with data for spending plans provided for 2005-06.
Gross value added (GVA), (which is the Government’s preferred measure of economic output), for each region is available on the Office for National Statistics website (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/economic_trends/ET627_Marais.pdf). The latest available data are for 2003-04.
Mr. Redwood: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much (a) public spending was undertaken and (b) revenue was collected in (i) Wales, (ii) Scotland, (iii) London and the South East and (iv) the UK in 2005-06. [74810]
Mr. Timms: Total identifiable public expenditure on services by country and region is set out in table 7.1 of Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2006 (Cm. 6811). The latest outturn data available are for 2004-05 with data for spending plans provided for 2005-06.
Current receipts at the UK level are set out in table C8 of the Budget 2006 report (HC 968). Receipts are not hypothecated to particular regions and comprehensive data on the regional distribution of tax receipts are not readily available.
Public Transport
David Simpson: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what incentives are available to encourage members of his staff to use public transport for travelling to and from work. [75088]
John Healey: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 25 May 2006, Official Report, column 1912W. The Treasury is located in Westminster and is well served by public transport. Very few staff travel to work by car and no special incentives exist to encourage car sharing except when public transport is disrupted.
The Treasury offers all staff interest free loans for the purchase of season tickets and bicycles, and has a designated bicycle parking area within the premises.
Savings Incentives
Natascha Engel: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will take steps to introduce tax incentives to encourage children under 18 years and born before September 2002 to save. [73803]
Ed Balls:
The Government introduced the Child Trust Fund in April 2005. To show we understood the
issue of older children the Government backdated the eligibility date to all children born on or after 1 September 2002 to align with school years. It is important to recognise that to realise the full benefits of the Child Trust Fund for future generations we must draw a line somewhere.
There already exists considerable scope for tax-relieved savings for children. All children have their own personal tax allowance and parents are taxed on income generated from contributions to their child’s account only when those gifts produce more than £100 gross income per parent per year.
In addition, the market offers a wide range of savings and investment accounts designed especially for children from a range of financial services providers.
Scottish Executive (Infrastructure Project Funding)
Stewart Hosie: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if he will take steps to allow long-term borrowing by the Scottish Executive to fund major infrastructure projects; [74746]
(2) if he will make Barnett Formula bypass funding available to the Scottish Executive to fund major infrastructure projects. [74747]
Mr. Timms: There are no plans to give the Scottish Executive borrowing powers to fund infrastructure projects. Scottish local authorities have prudential borrowing powers. The funding arrangements for the Scottish Executive are detailed in the Treasury publication “Funding the Scottish Parliament, National Assembly for Wales and Northern Ireland Assembly, A Statement of Funding Policy” published in July 2004.
Stamp Duty
Joan Walley: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many properties sold in England and Wales in 2004 attracted stamp duty at (a) 0 per cent., (b) 1 per cent., (c) 3 per cent. and (d) 4 per cent. [73807]
Ed Balls: The following table gives the estimated number of property transactions in England and Wales falling into each stamp duty band in 2004:
| Price range | Stamp duty rate (percentage) | Number of property transactions 2004 (thousand) |
The numbers paying stamp duty will be lower due to the use of various reliefs eg disadvantaged area relief, group relief, registered social landlord relief etc.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |