It is not possible for the Department to make a comparative assessment of the adequacy of out-of-hours NHS services run by private companies and those run by NHS organisations.

All out of hours services must be delivered in line with national quality requirements. Primary care trusts have a legal obligation to ensure they provide, or secure provision of, a high quality, sustainable service for their local population and are responsible for performance managing their providers in the delivery of high quality out-of-hours services.

There are no plans to introduce the policy as stated.

Directive 83/182/EEC allows EU citizens visiting another member state in their own vehicle temporary immunity from duties during the period of their stay. There is no requirement therefore to issue visitors with a tax disc notifying the authorities of their status.

Under the 1975 International Circulation order, foreign citizens visiting the UK may drive on their foreign licences for up to 12 months as a visitor without needing to exchange their licences. There are no other administrative requirements to this law.

Information about when vehicles need to be registered and licensed is published at:

www.gov.uk

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency maintains a record of foreign registered vehicles reported by members of the public, the police or local authorities. Evidence that a vehicle has been in the UK for more than six months, may result in enforcement action. This can

include the wheel clamping and impounding of the vehicle. The onus is on the keeper of the vehicle to prove that it has been in the country for less than six months; I am keen that we continue enforcing this.

Current enforcement around foreign registered vehicles is carried out in a proportionate way focusing on those seen as hardened evaders. It is for the keeper of the vehicle to prove that the vehicle has been in the UK for less than six months. Abuse of the system is considered to be low but this position is kept under review. To have foreign registered vehicles staying in the UK for more than six months has implications for both road safety and tax revenue, and so I am keen that we continue enforcing this.

It is not possible to estimate how many foreign vehicles have been in the country for more than six months as records are not kept of foreign registered vehicles entering or leaving the UK. I am aware of unofficial estimates in circulation, but DVLA is unable to confirm these figures.

As set out in my written ministerial statement of 10 January 2013, Official Report, column 21WS, the Government will continue to issue new index-linked gilts linked to the retail prices index.

Separately, the Government announced at autumn statement 2011 that it would not issue gilts linked to the consumer prices index (CPI) in 2012-13 but would keep the case to issue CPI-linked gilts in the medium-term under review.

The Government will as usual set out the Debt Management Office's financing remit for the next financial year at Budget.

[holding answer 18 January 2013]: The information that you have requested is given in the following table.

[holding answer 18 December 2012]: Itemised telephone billing records are required to be retained for 12 months under the Data Retention (EC Directive) Regulations 2009 (SI 2009 No. 859). Information as to whether such records are available to law enforcement for periods beyond 12 months is not held centrally. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) does not make any requirement as to the period for which telephone billing records should be made available.

[holding answer 17 December 2012]: The numbers of formal challenges (appeals) against valuation assessments in the 2005 and 2010 England and Wales local ratings lists that were unresolved on 31 March for each of the two previous financial years, are provided in the following table:

There are currently no official statistics available for total rateable value under challenge. These will be included in a new experimental statistics release for business rates currently under development, the release date for which will be announced as soon as possible.

The VOA cleared 190,000 appeals in 2011-12 and expects to have cleared over 400,000 appeals in the two years to the end of March 2013. Around three quarters of those appeals result in no change. The VOA has prioritised the clearance of appeals by improving efficiency,

diverting resources from other work areas, and recruiting additional frontline staff. These measures are delivering significantly higher appeal clearances.

This information is not collected by the Home Office. Guidance issued by the Association of Chief Police Officers states that police forces should not recruit people with convictions which may call into question the integrity of the applicant or the police. Police officers who are convicted of a criminal offence can face disciplinary action including dismissal. Action in each individual case is the responsibility of the relevant chief constable and the police and crime commissioner.

At Budget 2012, the Government announced that it would extend the 100% first-year allowance (FYA) for businesses purchasing low emissions cars for a further two years, until 31 March 2015. The Government also announced that the capital allowances emissions thresholds would be updated in line with forthcoming European Union targets and that leased cars would no longer be eligible for the FYA.

These changes will take effect from April 2013 and it is too early to evaluate their impact on the market for low emission cars. However, a draft tax information and impact note was published on 11 December;

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/finance_bill_2013_consultation.htm

It is expected that the changes will ensure that, in the context of falling emissions, the capital allowances system continues to provide an incentive for businesses to purchase the most environmentally-friendly business cars.

The decision not to apply the renewed FYA to leased cars is consistent with the Government's wider capital allowances policy and is designed to ensure that the FYA maximises value-for-money in terms of the environmental benefit it brings to the UK.

HM Revenue and Customs are empowered to pay rewards by virtue of section 26 of the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005. These payments are discretionary and are not guaranteed.

In each of the last five years, HM Revenue and Customs has paid the following total amounts in rewards:

I can confirm that HM Revenue and Customs holds some information relating to the range of individual awards paid in each of the same five years. However, this is exempt from disclosure because of section 44(1)(a)

of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which allows a public authority to withhold information which is itself prohibited from disclosure by some enactment.

HMRC's approach to tackling tax evasion is published:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/budget-updates/march2012/tax-evasion-report.pdf

HMRC ensures that business areas are resourced to deliver HMRC strategy, using the funding allocated to the department by the Government in the most effective way. Within HMRC, activity to tackle tax evasion is primarily carried out by the Enforcement and Compliance business area.

HMRC collects management information on resources deployed and the total revenue raised from different compliance activities. The effectiveness of additional or fewer staff is assessed using a combination of management information, operational intelligence and planning scenarios informed by a resource allocation model which compares the return from different activities and the impact of different case mixes on revenues. The model is used to estimate the potential impact of different resourcing levels and to inform resource allocation decisions.

The effectiveness of HMRC compliance activity is seen in its results. HMRC has achieved significant successes in reducing both evasion and avoidance. Overall, compliance revenues have more than doubled in six years. In 2010-11 the total revenue from HMRC compliance activities was reported as £13.9 billion; in 2011-12 it was reported as £16.7 billion.

At autumn statement, 5 December 2012, Official Report, columns 871-82, the Government announced a £5.5 billion investment in infrastructure, including £1.5 billion for roads.

The Government will set out detailed plans for spending in 2015-16 in the first half of next year—which will include further decisions on capital spending. Additional spending decisions will be taken as part of the next spending review.

We cannot answer this question further without prejudicing the process of ongoing policy formulation. Releasing this information is likely to have a detrimental impact on the formulation and development of government policy.

The recent agreement with the Swiss Government does not provide immunity from prosecution for persons paying the withholding tax.

DECC has engaged closely with the voltage optimisation and management industry over recent months, and has ensured that the industry has sent its reports to the independent Scientific Integrity Group, which reports to the Government contractors working on the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP). This group is reviewing evidence from industry and other sources. We look forward to the views of the expert group, in the light of which it will be possible, to provide a firmer assessment of the modellable energy-saving benefits of the technology and the potential for its inclusion within SAP and in turn the Green Deal.

The amount of tax paid by households and the amount of benefits received by households will vary greatly, depending on the individual characteristics and circumstances of the household. There is therefore no single point of income at which households begin to contribute more to the state than they receive from the state, and it would be misleading to present analysis which does this.

The Office of National Statistics has produced some statistics on this in their publication ‘The Effects of Taxes and Benefits on Household Income, 2010/11’. These show income figures, cash benefit figures and direct tax figures across the income distribution by income quintile and income decile. These figures suggest that, on average, the top 60% of the income distribution pay more in income tax, NICs, council tax and indirect taxes than they receive in benefits. However, some households on lower incomes will still be net contributors to the state, and some households on higher incomes will still be net recipients from the state. These estimates are not split up into specific family types. This publication is based on the Living Costs and Food (LCF) survey and has most recently been published based on the 2010-11 LCF. Figures are not yet available for 2011-12 and 2012-13 but are available as far back as 1977.

The information is shown in the following tables.

Please note that figures are not held for the years prior to 2006. Some of the underlying prosecution and conviction information up to and including 2009-10 originates from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), formerly the Revenue and Customs Prosecution Office (RCPO), and may have been collated on a slightly different basis.

Arrest, prosecution and conviction figures in any given period would not necessarily relate to the same individuals due to a variety of factors including, for example, timing and length of case, individuals arrested but not prosecuted (e.g. settled as a civil matter), individuals prosecuted but not arrested (e.g. interviewed under caution, summoned to court).

It is open at any time for individuals who have not declared and paid the correct tax to come forward and put their affairs in order. HMRC has launched an advertising campaign encouraging people to do so with a supporting website

www.gov.uk/sortmytax

to help them.

Usually if an individual makes a full, complete and accurate disclosure of their tax irregularities HMRC will not pursue the matter criminally. As well as tax and interest due HMRC can charge penalties for inaccuracy, failure to notify, or wrongdoing. These penalties may be reduced to nil or suspended in certain circumstances. More information can be found here:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/about/new-penalties/

These arrangements strike the right balance between encouraging those who have cheated to come forward while being fair to the majority who have paid the right amount of tax at the right time.

DEFRA is currently carrying out a review of land price data sources and is looking to collect both national and regional land prices and rents.