No estimate of the effect on the Exchequer for a ban on multi-buy alcohol promotions is available.

The Government is currently consulting on a ban on multi-buy alcohol promotions, including analysis of its effects on retailers, consumers and the Exchequer.

HMRC has also commissioned research into consumer responses to pricing and promotion restrictions, and it will be completed in 2013.

Total net lending by banks participating in the Funding for Lending Scheme increased by £0.5 billion in the third quarter of 2012. The Bank of England will provide an update to these data in March.

The following table details the numbers requested. This is based on the latest published data —August 2011.

Child benefit statistics are published once a year and can be found at:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/statistics/child-geog-stats.htm#2

Statistics for August 2012 will be published in early 2013.

The high income child benefit charge does not affect entitlement to national insurance credits. This is set out on the HMRC website:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/childbenefitcharge/introduction.htm#5

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) employment statistics for County Durham and north-west Durham are not available back to 1997. Table 1 shows growth in the employment level each year from the year to June 2005. Estimates of employment at the county and constituency level are more volatile than estimates for larger geographic areas, reflecting the small sample size for survey respondents. Employment increased in County Durham decreased by 0.9% between the year to June 2011 and the year to June 2012, while north-west Durham decreased by 10.3%.

Employment increased by 4.1% in the north-east over the year to the three months to October 2012 and by 1.9% in England (Table 2).

The Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) is responsible for employment forecasts, which are only available at the UK level. Employment is projected to rise in every year of the OBR's December 2012 ‘Economic and fiscal outlook’. In the next three financial years employment in the UK is forecast to increase from 29.6 million in this financial year to 30 million in 2015-16.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) employment statistics for Haltemprice and Howden are not available back to 1997. Table 1 shows growth in the employment level each year from the year to June 2005. Estimates of employment at the constituency level are more volatile than estimates for larger geographic areas, reflecting the small sample size for survey respondents. Employment increased in Haltemprice and Howden by 10.1% between the year to June 2011 and the year to June 2012.

Employment increased by 3.9% in Yorkshire and the Humber over the year to the three months to October 2012 and by 1.9% in England (Table 2).

The Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) is responsible for employment forecasts, which are only available at the UK level. Employment is projected to rise in every year of the OBR's December 2012 economic and fiscal outlook. In the next three financial years employment in the UK is forecast to increase from 29.6 million in this financial year to 30 million in 2015-16.

Motorists on the Scottish islands and the Isles of Scilly are benefitting from the 5p per litre discount on pump prices since the Government introduced the rural fuel rebate pilot scheme earlier this year.

The Government will consider whether to seek EU approval for an extension of the scheme to other remote parts of the UK that are likely to display similar characteristics to the islands.

Motorists on the Scottish islands and the Isles of Scilly are benefitting from the 5p per litre discount on pump prices since the Government introduced the rural fuel rebate pilot scheme earlier this year.

The Government will consider whether to seek EU approval for an extension of the scheme to other remote parts of the UK that are likely to display similar characteristics to the islands.

HM Revenue and Customs does not separately identify Gift Aid claims by regions of the UK and will not be able to do so for the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme.

Amounts of top-up payments paid under the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme will be published on the HMRC website in due course.

The Treasury has spent the following amounts on its website in the years requested:

I have been asked to reply on behalf of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

The Financial Services Authority is not responsible for tackling illegal money lending. Until April 2012 the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills directly funded trading standards to take on complex cases which crossed individual local authority boundaries. This included setting up Tackling Illegal Money Lending Teams for England, Wales and Scotland.

On 1 April 2012, the Government published its response to the consultation on Empowering and Protecting Consumers, which set out the decision to establish a National Trading Standards Board (NTSB) for England and Wales. During 2012-13, the NTSB has continued to fund the delivery of the Illegal Money Lending Team in England, while the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) fund provision in Scotland.

Between April 2004 and April 2012, the projects had:

Identified over 2,500 illegal money lenders and arrested over 600 illegal money lenders and secured over 220 prosecutions, resulting in prison sentencing totalling over 117 years—some cases were connected to other, more serious criminal activity which took precedence over illegal money lending prosecutions.

Seized over £2.1 million in cash.

Identified over £28 million of assets that could be seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Helped over 16,000 victims of loan sharks.

The information requested is not currently available.

There are a variety of reasons why RTI submissions may not be matched to a hash cross reference received from the payment system.

Hashes received for schemes that have recently joined the RTI system cannot be matched where the PAYE scheme is still going through the RTI alignment process. HMRC have also indentified that in some cases hash cross references are being included in RTI submissions where the employer is not paying their employees under a BACS service user number. Hash matching is not possible in these cases. HMRC is using the RTI pilot to refine its guidance to employers and software developers about hash matching.

Since May 2010 there has been (a) one secondment from a major utility company, (b) none from Energy UK and (c) none from other related energy utility organisations.

Public sector net social benefits increased by (a) 86% from £106 billion to £197 billion in cash terms, (b) 40% from £144 billion to £201 billion in real terms (2011-12 prices), and (c) ¾ppt from 12½% of GDP to 13¼% between 1997-98 and 2010-11.

[holding answer 13 December 2012]: From 2004 to 2012 there were over 650 decisions in UK tax cases in the Upper Tribunal (previously High Court) and above covering both avoidance and non avoidance cases. About 100 of these cases arose from corporation tax disputes. Overall HMRC won about two thirds of these cases. The classification of a case as tax avoidance involves an element of interpretation that would require detailed scrutiny of individual judgments. This could only be undertaken at disproportionate cost for the full period requested. However, HMRC has undertaken some analysis for the period from 2010 to April 2012, during which time HMRC was successful in 51 out of 60 judgments in tax avoidance cases.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 11 December 2012, Official Report, column 293W.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) provide unemployment statistics by constituency on an annual basis. Estimates of unemployment at the constituency level are not available for all constituencies. Where reported they are not very precise and can exaggerate changes, reflecting the small sample size for survey respondents.

Comparing the year July 2010 to June 2001 to July 2011 to June 2012 the following 20 parliamentary constituencies saw the largest increases in unemployment (table 1). Changes as a percentage are provided in table 2.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 12 December 2012, Official Report, column 330W, to my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney).

This information can be found in the HMRC publication ‘How are we Doing’ published November 2012 and available online at:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/about/briefings/2012-13-half-yearly.pdf

In the first five months of the current financial year, UK tax credits and child benefit claims and changes of circumstances were cleared in an average of 15.2 days.

Over the same period, international claims and changes of circumstance were cleared in an average of 122.1 days.

Data about tax credits are not broken down into working tax credit and child tax credit as both are made on the same claim form where appropriate.

Information on the average length of time for HM Revenue and Customs to administer a reconsideration of a decision to stop or adjust a claimant's tax credit entitlement following a Credit Reference Agency undeclared partner intervention is not readily available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

The guidance issued to HMRC compliance officers on undeclared partner interventions is published at Chapter 15 of the Claimant Compliance Manual. This manual is available at:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/ccmmanual/index.htm

HMRC currently deploys around 227 full-time equivalent staff on the Credit Reference Agency undeclared partner intervention.