Finance Bill (Fifth sitting)

Anthony Browne Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 11th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

We believe that a more ambitious approach is demanded by the unique and challenging circumstances that we are in, and we remain concerned that the measures today simply do not go far enough.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I am generally a low-tax Conservative. I prefer lower, simpler taxes, but I thoroughly welcome this new tax. It is clearly welcomed across the House. The public are frustrated at seeing these big technology companies and other multinational corporations not paying their fair share of tax.

I have a few observations and then one question for my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary. It is absolutely welcome that he is co-ordinating globally on this. I have led tax talks with the OECD on things like common reporting standards, and they take a very long time, so it is welcome that he has come forward with a national measure aligned with what we expect from the international measures, and we are not waiting for the international measures to come into place.

I notice that the shadow Chief Secretary says that the measure has not gone far enough, but it is still one of the first in the world and it also breaks the mould in being a turnover tax, which the UK Government have always resisted. As globalisation continues apace, the arguments for turnover taxes as opposed to profit taxes get a lot stronger and we now have one in the UK on digital services. I suspect that in years to come there will be arguments made for expanding turnover taxes to other sectors.

The case was made that the tax is modest in terms of revenue, but all taxes start out modestly. When we look at the history of value added tax, stamp duty or income tax, they started out modestly and tended to increase as we saw what their impact was. The digital services tax is an entirely new tax on a sector where we do not really know the dynamics. The data has not been collected by the companies, so it is absolutely right that we see what the impact is before deciding in what way to extend it.

When I was chief executive of the British Bankers’ Association, I was involved in many discussions with the Treasury on new bank-specific taxes. With a new tax, it is always the case that we do not know what revenue we will get. There is always a high amount of uncertainty because people have not collected the data for that tax. It is inevitable that for the digital services tax there will be a degree of uncertainty, as has been pointed out.

My question for my right hon. Friend the Minister is about enforcement and implementation. The digital services companies will have to collect a lot of data that they might not have been already collecting. HMRC will be dependent on them for providing the data because it will not have direct access to all their internal accounts and that level of detail. I want to know what work is being done with HMRC to make sure that it can get the right data and have confidence that the companies are paying the amount of tax that they should be paying and not playing games, as they are sometimes wont to do.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

I am also not usually somebody who likes to find new ways to tax people in the UK. The digital services tax is totally new, but it is the right thing to do. The clauses detail the scope and the mechanisms for the tax and its collection. We even have a clause with an algebraic formula, which should certainly raise an eyebrow. [Laughter.]

The main thing to note is that the economy is changing fast and the tax is a part of that change. The Government’s response is to work internationally as we plot the course to a digital economy. Such economies are by definition international, so it is right to respond in a multinational way. I also know that it is very hard and takes a long time to achieve the objectives, so it is clearly right to proceed in the short term with this measure. Digital firms must pay their fair share.

It is increasingly hard for Governments to raise revenue from their traditional routes. The Government obviously have to raise revenue to fund the public services that we want. There is therefore an underlying, fundamental challenge for the Treasury. Work and consumption patterns change. I recognise that I possibly view this through the prism of somebody who has had responsibility for raising Government revenue—once a Treasury Minister, always a Treasury Minister—but this tax and the thinking behind it are the shape of things to come. Tax has to evolve to reflect the way the economy evolves.

The rise of the digital economy means different things for different companies. The opportunities for productivity and environmental gains are absolutely immense, so we must do all that we can to encourage the shift into a digital economy. Most people encounter it through social media search engines and online retail, which are the target areas for the tax. The growth of online retail has placed ever greater pressure on traditional high street retail businesses: a trend compounded, as colleagues have said, by the current crisis.

There have been concerns about the nature of competition and whether there has been a level playing field between online and offline: the argument between bricks and clicks. We should make every effort to level the playing field and the tax is a part of that. High streets have a role beyond their traditional economic role. They have a social role and bring people together. They create hubs for communities, but they also have to evolve to reflect the changing nature of competition, and a more level playing field in taxation will help give them the space to evolve.

I had some concerns that the tax may discourage digital start-ups; we have seen a good period for start-ups in the UK and I think that we have led Europe in this sector. However, I think those concerns have been dealt with by the threshold at which the tax becomes payable, which will only capture the very largest of businesses.

So, we have a very interesting new area for taxation, which I do not think any Government can enter into lightly. The Minister is an old friend—we have worked together for many years—and I commend him, because this is not easy stuff; it is pioneering for the UK and indeed for the world. But we have found a way forward that updates our taxation system and introduces more fairness to it, and through the operation of the new system we will learn how future taxation may work. So, as we go through further clauses in detail today, perhaps he could comment on how any learnings from this tax might influence and develop future taxation thinking.