Today is the funeral of Lord Darling, who will be greatly missed by many in this House, as well as by Maggie and his family. Civil servants are known for being good at concealing their private feelings about more challenging Ministers, but that was never necessary with Alistair Darling. He was Chief Secretary to the Treasury and then Chancellor during the global financial crisis, and despite the many stresses and strains of that period, he was uniformly admired and much loved for his kindness, decency and dry sense of humour. He took decisions in that period that have stood the test of time and put him on the small list of Chancellors whom history will remember for wise decision making in an unprecedented crisis. We will always remember him.
Finally, Mr Speaker, may I wish you and all the staff in the House a merry and peaceful Christmas?
Dr Cameron
I, too, send my full sympathy. I also wish everyone across the House a merry Christmas.
Industry has fully supported the Prime Minister’s vision of the UK becoming a cryptocurrency hub, but many licensed companies are still finding it difficult to open bank accounts here. So will the Chancellor meet the all-party group on crypto and digital assets to discuss what progress can be made on digital Britain?
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for asking that question, because the UK, and London in particular, has become the global crypto hub. To make sure that the market can really take off in the way that was intended—in a responsible way—we need to regulate it, which is why we have introduced regulations on stablecoins and on the promotion of crypto services. My hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury would be more than happy to meet her.
Merry Christmas to you and to the House, Mr Speaker. Let me start by thanking the Chancellor for his kind words about the late Lord Darling, which I think show the gratitude of Members from across the House for his lifetime of public service.
The public have a right to know why so many billions of pounds of their taxes have been wasted by this Government. Baroness Mone has claimed today that Conservative Ministers knew about her personal connections to the company PPE Medpro from the very beginning. So why did the Government not correct the record when a misleading picture was being painted in the media about Baroness Mone’s personal connection to PPE Medpro in the first place?
I am not going to comment on allegations by Baroness Mone or, indeed, on the individual case, but let me say this: we put together a taskforce of more than 1,000 people that opened 46,000 investigations and so far has made more 80 arrests, so we will stop at nothing to tackle fraud and bring to justice anyone who was responsible for wrongdoing. But what we did in a moment of extreme crisis was to make sure that we got personal protective equipment to the frontline as quickly as we could, and had we not done so many more lives would have been lost.
We all know that Baroness Mone’s enrichment via PPE Medpro is subject to an investigation, but that does not allow Ministers to refuse to answer questions here in the House today. So let me ask another: Baroness Mone’s husband, Doug Barrowman, alleged that in November 2022 he was approached by a Government official asking if they would
“pay more for the other matter to go away.”
Is that specific and incredibly serious claim now being investigated and, if so, by whom?
If the hon. Gentleman has any evidence of people behaving improperly or illegally, he should tell the police, and he will get the full support of this Government and the whole House in bringing the matter to justice. But let me just say to him that any responsible Opposition should understand that in a crisis there is a trade-off between speed and taking longer to prevent fraud, and we took the right decision to save as many lives as possible.
T3. I am hearing from a concerning number of small businesses in my constituency that they are slowing down as they approach the VAT threshold, rather than doing what the whole economy needs them to do and going for growth. Ahead of the spring Budget, will my right hon. Friend look at substantially shifting the VAT threshold upwards?
My hon. Friend is a great advocate for small businesses. The Government recognise that accounting for VAT can be a burden on businesses, but that is why, at £85,000, the UK has a higher VAT registration threshold than any EU member state and the second highest in the OECD, keeping the majority of UK businesses out of VAT altogether. In the 2022 autumn statement, it was announced that the VAT threshold would be maintained at its current level until 31 March 2026. As always, the Government keep taxes under review.
T2. I echo the Chancellor’s generous and well-judged tribute to Alistair Darling. At the autumn statement, the Chancellor said—mistakenly, as it turned out—that the household support fund was being extended into the next financial year; the Chief Secretary to the Treasury clarified the position a few moments ago. Does the Chancellor recognise that there is a compelling case for him to announce exactly that extension in the Budget, so that councils can continue to provide the last-resort safety net that has been such a valuable feature of the household support fund over the last three years?
I recognise the important role the household support fund has played. As my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said earlier, no decisions have been made about what will happen going forward. There were a lot of anti-poverty measures in the autumn statement, including increasing benefits next year by double the rate of inflation, increasing the full-time national living wage by £1,800 a year and increasing the local housing allowance, providing an average of an extra £800 to 1.6 million households.
T7. Merry Christmas, Mr Speaker, to you, your team and the Treasury team. Between now and the next Treasury questions, millions of our constituents will be required to file a self-assessment tax return, yet this week we learned that His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has suddenly shut down its hotline for the majority of people and their advisers. Our most law-abiding citizens are trying to get their taxes right, so what advice can my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury give to them as to how they can contact HMRC?
I thank my hon. Friend the Chair of the Treasury Committee for raising this issue with me. We want to ensure that people can be served accurately and effectively through the most efficient channels. Two thirds of calls to the self-assessment line could be resolved online, through other channels—I highly recommend the app, for example. Last year, HMRC received over 3 million calls on three issues—resetting a password, getting a tax code and getting a national insurance number—that could easily be resolved digitally. People will still be able to call in, but we need to redeploy resources away from very simple questions towards those most in need, which will help those who are digitally unaware.
T5. Mr Speaker, I wish you, your staff and everyone across the House a very happy Christmas. It has been reported that the Prime Minister instructed a £40 million VIP helicopter service that had been earmarked for closure to continue to provide him with flights. Will the Treasury publish a cost-benefit analysis of that decision for taxpayers to see?
I do not know the details of the issue raised by the hon. Lady, but I assure her that the Treasury is ferocious in its determination to ensure that every penny of the public’s money is spent wisely.
T8. The electrification of the north Wales main line has been a vital issue to Delyn and the rest of north Wales for many years. Back in 2015, when it was judged as costing about £850 million, it was kiboshed by the Treasury as not being value for money. Now that it is expected to cost over £1 billion, will the Chancellor guarantee that the project will definitely go ahead and that the Treasury will not put a stop on it again?