Key Facts

• £650 million was announced in December last year for local authorities to secure housing stock for refugees from conflict zones.
• An additional £250 million was announced on March 28, 2023, to ease homelessness pressures.
• The amendment will enable registered providers of social housing to benefit from the exemption when using new funding under section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003.
• Clause 314 makes changes to the Value Added Tax Act 1994.
• The clause ensures that VAT is not charged on drink deposits even though they have been refunded.
• Only the business that makes the first sale of a drink with a deposit will be required to account for VAT on unreturned deposits.
• VAT will be levied only on the first seller.
• The DRS excludes glass containers initially.
• Implementation of the scheme has faced delays and is now smaller than intended, excluding glass.
• Landfill tax might impact behaviour related to the recycling scheme.
• The SNP aims for a more comprehensive approach across Scotland.
• Schedule 19 creates new processes for bilateral safeguards and allows Ministers more flexibility when making trade remedy decisions.
• The Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) will be required to notify Ministers before initiating investigations.
• Clause 316 introduces customs advance valuation rulings, enabling businesses to obtain legally binding rulings on import duties and taxes prior to shipment.
• Clause 317 updates customs legislation to bring together all rules related to customs guarantees into a single framework.
• The UK Trade Remedies Authority was established in June 2021.
• Schedule 19 allows Ministers to exercise significant flexibility when making decisions on trade remedy cases.
• Schedule 20 extends the TRA’s remit to include bilateral safeguards under UK free trade agreements.
• Lord Geidt resigned from his position as ethics adviser for Boris Johnson in June 2022 due to a dispute over potential future decisions related to the Trade Remedies Authority.
• The Trade Remedies Authority was established in such a way that major reforms were needed soon after its establishment.
• Consultations with industry and the TRA have been ongoing since June 2021 regarding the trade remedies framework reform.
• Advance rulings are key components of UK’s accession to CPTPP and other free trade agreements, helping businesses.
• The Trade Remedies Authority started investigating cases in 2021, completing one new investigation and transitioning eleven measures from the EU.
• The changes were announced at Budget 2020 and implemented in April 2022.
• The amendments address technical issues in section 14B of the Hydrocarbon Oil Duties Act 1979.
• Lifeboat charities will now be allowed to use rebated fuels in tractors and geared machines used for launching and recovering lifeboats.
• The spring Budget 2023 announced increases in tobacco duty rates.
• Smoking costs society £21 billion a year in England.
• Duty on all tobacco products will rise by 2% above the retail prices index level of inflation.
• Hand-rolling tobacco duties increase by an additional 6% above RPI inflation.
• The minimum excise tax on cigarettes increases by an additional 1% to 3% above RPI inflation.
• New tobacco rates took effect from 6 pm on 5 March 2023.
• The soft drinks industry levy came into effect in April 2018 to reduce obesity.
• The levy has resulted in a 46% reduction in sugar in soft drinks between 2015 and 2020.
• Clause 320 will bring consistency across the soft drinks industry by including liquid flavour concentrates used with sugar in dispensing machines.
• Sugar tax receipts decreased by £21 million from April 2022 to March 2023.
• The total amount of sugar in soft drinks sold by retailers and manufacturers decreased by 35.4% between 2015 and 2019, from 135,500 tonnes to 87,600 tonnes.