Covid-19: Small Businesses Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Baroness Wheatcroft
Main Page: Baroness Wheatcroft (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Wheatcroft's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Covid-19: Small Businesses
Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Lord Callanan (Con)
I am pleased that the noble Lord has been able to take advantage of one of our loan schemes. He made an interesting suggestion about a national Government—but I hope he will accept that that is way above my pay grade.
Baroness Wheatcroft (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, in the time of Covid, small businesses are having to rely increasingly on internet platforms such as Amazon and Google to market their products. The digital services tax, which was supposed to ensure that these platforms pay their fair share, is being passed on to those small businesses, which cannot afford to pay the extra 2% they are being asked for. So will the Minister revisit the digital services tax, which is clearly not working as it was supposed to?
Lord Callanan (Con)
Again, the noble Baroness is tempting me to enter the territory of the Chancellor. We have been clear that the digital services tax is temporary, and businesses are liable to it only when they have worldwide revenues of more than £500 million, and more than £25 million of those revenues is derived from UK users. So it applies only to the very largest businesses.