HMRC is not able to provide a comparative assessment of the average processing times for (a) VAT and (b) Corporation Tax registration by (i) HMRC and (ii) other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The OECD do not publish information of this nature.

DWP monitors the operation of Carer’s Allowance (CA) and keeps the benefit under continual review to see if it is meetings its objectives, which are to provide a measure of financial support and recognition for people who are not able to work full time because of their caring responsibilities.

We will continue to spend record amounts on CA to provide unpaid carers with the help and support they need and deserve, with CA being uprated each year by the Consumer Price Index to help ensure it maintains its value. As set out in my answer to PQW/24-25/2025/54424, it is important to remember that unpaid carers can also receive means-tested benefits which contain additional amounts specifically to recognise the extra costs and responsibilities of being an unpaid carer.

Making international comparisons of benefits and other support is far from straightforward. There are a range of support measures introduced by national governments where caring is taking place. Sometimes their primary objective is to provide financial support for the older or disabled person to help meet the additional costs of needing care and are typically accessed through an assessment of the amount of help required by the disabled or older person. They are also frequently paid to the person receiving care, on the assumption that they will then pass them on to a family caregiver of their choice, sometimes with no formal requirement of how it should be used.

Many national schemes are funded through social health or protection insurance payments and the carer’s access to any support is often entirely dependent on the insurance entitlement of the individual or person receiving care. In other instances, ‘cash for care’ measures are aimed at offering consumer-style choice to older and disabled people. In such instances, benefitting carers, if at all, is a secondary aim. In both instances these measures differ widely in terms of target group, eligibility criteria, interactions with formal care service, payment levels and whether they are means-tested. Their impact on carers also varies, depending on local labour markets, the availability of formal long-term care services, and social attitudes towards the roles of families in caring for older and disabled people. Australia and Ireland have schemes which are most similar to the UK system in that they offer support directly to carers, but very importantly they are means tested, unlike CA.

We have no current plans to commission specific research into the adequacy of CA or its detailed impacts.

In 2023/24, total housing support provided to private rented sector (PRS) tenants amounted to £12.3 billion (in 2024/25 prices). Of this, £3.9 billion was delivered through Housing Benefit (HB), while £8.4 billion was provided via the Universal Credit Housing Element (UCHE). This means that HB accounted for 32% of total PRS housing support, with UCHE making up the remaining 68%.

The Department does not hold information on housing benefit payments made to private landlords in other OECD countries. Housing support systems vary significantly between countries, and as such, comparisons of housing benefit payments across international contexts should be treated with caution.

The information requested on Housing Benefit paid to private landlords by region and local authority is publicly available. It can be accessed via Benefit expenditure and caseload tables 2024 - GOV.UK (Benefit Expenditure by Local Authority 2023/24)

Housing Benefits Expenditure, £m real terms, 2025/26 prices, from 2014/15 to 2023/24

The Government committed to carry out a landmark Pensions Review to deliver better outcomes for savers and the UK economy. Our focus is on building a system that supports people to save effectively throughout their working lives and provides a strong foundation for income in retirement.

Automatic Enrolment (AE) has helped over 11 million workers start saving into a pension since 2012, but we know some people still are not saving enough. In March 2023, DWP published new analysis into future pensioner incomes, showing that 38% of working age people (equivalent to 12.5 million people) are under saving for retirement when measured against Target Replacement Rates before housing costs and 12% are not saving enough to meet the Pension and Lifetime Savings Association’s minimum living standard. That is why the second phase of our Pensions Review will in the coming months look at further steps to improve pension outcomes.

OECD rankings show that the UK’s pensions system of the new State Pension and Automatic Enrolment will provide future workers with income replacement rates which are comparable to the OECD average, alongside countries such as Germany and Norway.

Two neural tube defects, anencephaly and spina bifida, are screened for by the NHS Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme at the 20 week scan. In England and the crown dependencies, there were 752 births with neural tube defects in 2019 and a prevalence of 12.2 births per 10,000 total births.

The National Congenital Anomaly and Rare Disease Registration Service submits data to EUROCAT, the European network of population-based registries for the epidemiological surveillance of congenital anomalies. In 2019, the overall prevalence of neural tube defects for participating full registries across Europe, including full participating regions of England, was 11.36 per 10,000 births.

The department has invested more than £3.5 billion in each of the last three years to deliver our early education entitlements.

The information requested is not held by the department but has been published previously by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in its Education at a Glance 2021 report.

The OECD publishes data on expenditure for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). This shows that the UK spent 0.3% of GDP on pre-primary education and care (ISCED 02)[1], compared to the OECD average of 0.6%. The differences on expenditure are largely explained by enrolment rates, legal entitlements, and the intensity of participation, as well as the different starting ages for primary education. The UK has one of the earliest primary school starting ages in the OECD, with most children starting at age 4. Therefore, the window for pre-primary education and spend is smaller than in many other OECD countries. This information is available at: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/financing-of-early-childhood-education-and-care-isced-0-and-change-in-expenditure-2018_b62e6aba-en.

[1] ISCED 02 refers to the UNESCO pre-primary education term. A full definition is available at: http://uis.unesco.org/node/3674229.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) aims to issue draft recommendations on new medicines close to the point of licensing, with final guidance within 90 days of licensing wherever possible. In 2021/22, NICE issued guidance within 90 days of licensing for 100% of new active substances where timelines were within NICE’s control. Topics outside of this timeframe were affected by external factors, such as where the pharmaceutical company requests a delay to NICE’s evaluation.

In 2022/23, NICE aims to increase the flexibility and capacity of its technology appraisal programme through a more proportionate approach to assessments. From April 2023, NICE aims to expand its capacity for technology appraisals by 20% to respond to increasing numbers of new medicines.

No specific assessment of the differences in average waiting times has been made. As countries operate different health systems, direct comparisons of patient access to medicines can be challenging. The EFPIA Patients W.A.I.T. Indicator 2021 Survey compares time to availability of new medicines across different European countries and is available at the following link:

https://efpia.eu/media/636821/efpia-patients-wait-indicator-final.pdf

Following the Grenfell Tower fire on 14 June 2017 the Government commissioned the Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety led by Dame Judith Hackitt. The report highlighted the need to transform the fire and building safety regime and recommended that “some minimum requirements around fire safety will need to be addressed when local planning authorities are determining planning applications and will require input from those with the relevant expertise.”

The review took into consideration the experience of other countries’ building regulatory frameworks. It noted that many of the concerns recognised with the English regulatory framework were shared across different countries. This included deviations from designs, potential conflicts of interest for third-party inspectors, lack of adequate competence, as well as lack of clarity around roles and responsibilities. The review’s findings and subsequent recommendations were also informed by case studies from countries such as Australia, New Zealand and Finland, the outcome of which was to move towards a culture of shared responsibility in how our planning system approaches building and fire safety.

In response to the review’s recommendations, the Government introduced new requirements known as planning gateway one on 1st August 2020, which require the developer to submit a fire statement setting out fire safety considerations specific to the development with a relevant application for planning permission for development which involves one or more relevant buildings.

Relevant buildings under planning gateway one must contain two or more dwellings or educational accommodation and meet the height condition of 18 metres or more, or 7 or more storeys.

These changes are intended to help ensure that applicants and decision-makers consider planning issues relevant to fire safety, bringing forward-thinking on fire safety matters as they relate to land use planning to the earliest possible stage in the development process and result in better schemes which fully integrate thinking on fire safety.

Additional guidance on fire safety and high-residential buildings can be found in the following planning practice guidance: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/fire-safety-and-high-rise-residential-buildings-from-1-august-2021

The government, along with regulators, are committed to ensuring that UK regulation promotes safe and sustainable financial services, while still allowing room for innovation and continually reviews its effectiveness.

It has long been the case in the UK that business lending is generally not subject to regulation – much like many other major economies such as; the US, Canada, and Australia. Ultimately, the government only looks to regulate where there is a clear case for doing so, in order to avoid putting additional costs on lenders that would ultimately lead to higher costs for business customers.

But of course, that does not mean – should things go wrong - that businesses do not have access to free, independent dispute resolution services. In fact, 99% of businesses have recourse to the Financial Ombudsman Service. And with the launch of the Business Banking Resolution Service in February this year, larger eligible SMEs also have somewhere independent to take their complaint.

Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) provides a minimum level of income for employees when they are sick or incapable of work. It is paid by employers at £96.35 per week for up to 28 weeks in any one period of entitlement. Employers are legally required to pay SSP to eligible employees who are off work sick or incapable of work, where employees meet the qualifying conditions. Some employers may also decide to pay more, and for longer, through Occupational Sick Pay.

The costs of SSP are met in full by employers. It is therefore important to strike a balance between ensuring employees receive financial support when they are sick or incapable of work with the costs to employers of providing such support.

SSP is just one part of our welfare safety net and our wider government offer to support people in times of need. Where an individual’s income is reduced while off work sick and they require further financial support, they may be able to claim Universal Credit and new style Employment and Support Allowance, depending on their personal circumstances.

The government has previously consulted on reform to SSP, and as we learn to live with a new virus there is space to take a broader look at the role of SSP. The government maintains that SSP provides an important link between the employee and employer but that now is not the right time to introduce changes to the sick pay system.

Valuing changes in greenhouse gases, including carbon, is vital to ensure climate change impacts are taken into account when appraising and evaluating public policies and projects. Carbon values used during policy appraisal are published as part of the Green Book supplementary guidance: valuation of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions for appraisal. A summary of the current carbon values for 2030, 2040, 2050 is given in the table below (the full annual series can be found in table 3 of the attached). The Government is not intending to publish equivalent figures for each of the OECD countries.

Table 1: HMG’s Carbon Values for policy appraisal

The UN Basel Convention and an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Council Decision (C(2001)107 FINAL) provide a system of international rules on waste shipments. These control regimes have been fully implemented in EU law through the EU Waste Shipment Regulations (Regulation (EC) 1013/2006). The EU’s control system for intra-EU shipments of waste is a shared regime that all EU member states must abide by. It does not draw a distinction between member states which are adherents to OECD Decision and member states which are not. Recent amendments made to the annexes of the Basel Convention will increase controls on the shipment of plastic waste. These will come into force globally on 1 January 2021.