PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES - United Kingdom Parliament

75WS
Written Ministerial Statements
26 MARCH 2013
Written Ministerial Statements
76WS
Written Ministerial
Statements
Tuesday 26 March 2013
TREASURY
Double Taxation Agreement (UK/Albania)
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David
Gauke): A first time double taxation agreement with the
Republic of Albania was signed on 26 March 2013. The
text of the agreement has been deposited in the Libraries
of both Houses and made available on HM Revenue
and Customs website. The text will be scheduled to
draft Orders in Council and laid before the House of
Commons in due course.
Environmental Taxation
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Sajid Javid):
This Government are reforming the tax system to make
it more competitive, simpler, fairer, and greener. As part
of this, in May 2010 Government committed to increasing
the proportion of tax revenue accounted for by
environmental taxes.
Last summer, the Government published their definition
of environmental taxes which set the baseline for achieving
that commitment. This statement provides an update of
the Government’s progress against that commitment,
using the independent OBR forecasts published alongside
the Budget. To provide greater clarity the Government
will also publish similar summaries of progress each
year until the end of this Parliament.
The Government classify environmental taxes as those
that meet all of the following three principles:
The tax is explicitly linked to the Government’s environmental
objectives;
The primary objective of the tax is to encourage environmentally
positive behaviour change; and
The tax is structured in relation to environmental objectives
(for example: the more polluting the behaviour, the greater
the tax levied).
The Government have defined the following as
environmental taxes based on these principles:
Climate Change Levy
Aggregates Levy
Landfill Tax
EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS)
Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme
Carbon Price Floor
The OBR forecasts demonstrate that the coalition
remains on track to achieve its commitment to increase
the proportion of revenue accounted for by environmental
taxes.
Tax
Actual
Revenue
Raise
2010/11
Actual
Revenue
Raise
2011/12
Revenue
forecast
2012/13
Revenue
forecast
2013/14
Revenue
forecast
2014/15
Revenue
forecast
2015/16
Revenue
forecast
2016/17
Revenue
forecast
2017/18
Climate Change £0.7 bn £0.7 bn £0.6 bn £0.3 bn £1.9 bn £2.4 bn £2.5 bn £2.5 bn
Levy and Carbon
Price Floor
Aggregate Levy £0.3 bn £0.3 bn £0.3 bn £0.3 bn £0.3 bn £0.3 bn £0.3 bn £0.3 bn
Landfill Tax £1.1 bn £1.1 bn £1.1 bn £1.0 bn £1.1 bn £1.2 bn £1.1 bn £1.2 bn
EU ETS £0.5 bn £0.2 bn £0.3 bn £0.7 bn £0.7 bn £0.8 bn £0.8 bn £0.9 bn
Carbon
£0.0 bn £0.7 bn £0.7 bn £0.7 bn £0.9 bn £0.9 bn £1.0 bn £1.0 bn
Reduction
Commitment
Total £2.5 bn £3.0 bn £3.1 bn £4.0 bn £4.9 bn £5.6 bn £5.7 bn £5.9 bn
2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 2015/16 2016/17 2017/18
TotalRevenuefrom
Environmental
Taxes
Total Tax Forecast
Receipts
Proportion of Total
Tax Receipts
£2.5 bn £3.0 bn £3.1 bn £4.0 bn £4.9 bn £5.6 bn £5.7 bn £5.9 bn
£551.4 bn £572.6 bn £586.8 bn £612.4 bn £633.1 bn £657.6 bn £694.1 bn £723.0 bn
£0.5 bn £0.5 bn £0.5 bn £0.7 bn £0.8 bn £0.8 bn £0.8 bn £0.8 bn
RevenueRaisingTaxes&FiscalInstrumentswithEnvironmental
Benefits
These are taxes and fiscal instruments which are
primarily designed to raise revenue or to achieve other
objectives, and therefore do not qualify as environmental
taxes on the basis of the Government’s three principles.
Differentiating environmental taxes from taxes which
are designed to achieve other objectives provides greater
clarity and transparency to the Government’s overall
tax strategy. However, non-environmental instruments
may have an environmental impact due to behavioural
change. On that basis, the Government believe that it is