Loan Charge

Debate between Bob Stewart and Stephen Metcalfe

Thursday 11th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Metcalfe]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. All the correspondence I have had has been phrased in very reasonable terms. People want to do the right thing, but they feel under a huge amount of pressure.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I am sure that, every year, my hon. Friend’s constituent sent in a tax return, which HMRC ticked, approved and sent back. Only recently has HMRC suddenly seen the way things are going and said, “Right, this is some kind of tax avoidance. Let’s get it all back, and in one year.”

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I do not know what the rules are on my hon. Friend reading the next line of my speech over my shoulder, because it says here that my constituent continued with these arrangements and, each and every year, dutifully declared on his tax return the amount he had received in loans and the amounts he had returned thereof. It came as a surprise that, years later, HMRC intends to use its newly granted powers—in what my constituent describes as “winding back the clock”—to retrospectively claim that the arrangements my constituent and others had used were not legal, had never worked and that the tax on the loans was always due.

Jobs and Business

Debate between Bob Stewart and Stephen Metcalfe

Friday 10th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I shall move on.

I shall structure my remarks around the national insurance contributions Bill and what more we can do to support business, but first I shall mention two issues that are of great importance to my constituents. Along with the economy, one of the issues that we struggle with is what we should do about immigration, and how we should handle that quite sensitive issue. We have to get the balance right. Undoubtedly, as a nation we have benefited from immigration. We are a global trading nation; we have sat at the heart of world economic development for very many years, and people come to this country to add to our economic vibrancy. But I share with my constituents a concern about how we handle that fairly—how we achieve a balance. Some of the announcements made in the Gracious Speech will be very welcome. It strikes a sensible balance between my constituents’ rights and those of migrants or immigrants who then commit a criminal offence. It seems to strike people that the pendulum often swings too far in support of the perpetrator rather than the victim.

We are a fundamentally fair nation. We are respectful, we are tolerant, and we believe in fair play, but we do not believe that a person who abuses that tolerance has a right to remain here. I am therefore very pleased with some of the announcements in the Gracious Speech, and I hope the Bill will demonstrate to my constituents that we are tackling a serious problem. They really do not understand how people who break the law here are able to continue to benefit from our good standards of respect for them. Those people should return to their own country when they break the rules here; they forfeit the right to stay.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

On that point, I am sure my hon. Friend will agree that if people advocate breaking the law—by making death threats, for example, against people of this country—they should be put on the list to leave as soon as possible.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention; I could not agree with him more. If appropriate measures do not exist, we should put them in place, and if they are there, we should remind our judiciary to exercise them.

My constituents will be pleased to hear that we are taking action on antisocial behaviour. When I came into office in 2010, I pledged to my constituents that I would look at tackling antisocial behaviour with them. In my constituency I organised an antisocial behaviour conference, which was attended by a Minister and at which we brought together councillors, the council and local residents to talk about their experience of antisocial behaviour. It is the scourge of many of our estates and town centres, and the description often belies its seriousness. It can make people’s lives a living hell. I am very pleased to see that we are recognising that and taking greater action to streamline the process for tackling it.

I do not want to demonise young people, who often get put in the frame for being responsible for most antisocial behaviour. Just because they are young and meet their friends in the street does not mean that they are committing antisocial behaviour; we should remind people of that. However, when such gatherings turn into antisocial behaviour we need to tackle it, and fast; and we need to give councils or the police the necessary power to do so. The most difficult issue that I am presented with at my surgery is that of neighbours creating problems for each other. I hope the Bill will make it easier to tackle antisocial behaviour caused by neighbours.

Thirdly, I want to discuss our economy and business. At this point I should declare my interests. I am a shareholder in a small business and worked in a small business throughout my career. Consequently, everything that I say about small business will probably benefit not only the business that I was involved in but many businesses across the country.

For too long we have focused on the public sector, and we have focused too much of the private sector into one area—banking, on which we have relied too much. I am pleased that there has been a push towards rebalancing our economy. I am also pleased that there has been significant growth in private sector businesses over the past three years—up 250,000. In south Essex, where I represent Basildon and Thurrock, the number of new businesses is up nearly 9% on last year—three times the regional average. There is a lot going on down in my patch. We are doing well in terms of job creation. DP World—Dubai Ports—is creating the London Gateway container port, which will generate 12,000 new jobs, but there is much more to be done. Many small businesses throughout my constituency are still trying hard to make ends meet. They will particularly welcome the measures announced for the national insurance contributions Bill. Anything that cuts the cost of doing business must be welcomed.

I will be honest: small businesses are struggling out there. It is tough. Rising costs, changing trends, changes on the high street, the rise of the internet, and ever-changing technology mean that small and medium-sized enterprises face ever-increasing challenges, yet they persevere in trying to make ends meet. I make a plea to the Government on their behalf: please keep listening to them; keep your ears open, and please, please remember that many small businesses act as a social service to their employees. They recognise that their employees are one of their greatest assets and do all they can to nurture and support them. They do not abuse them; they recognise that their future prosperity lies with their employees. I hope that, as a result of the changes announced for the national insurance contributions Bill, those small businesses will be encouraged to take on even more employees in the coming months.

There is still a significant challenge out there. If small businesses, the lifeblood of our economy, are to prosper they need access to easy, cheap finance. The Government have moved a significant distance. They have brought forward many initiatives to address the issue, but there is still a significant problem. Many of the initiatives address issues of access—some are those of cost—but I do not think that any yet address both. Banks are taking too risk averse an approach to lending and we must intervene to change that. Too many banks find ways of demonstrating lending while supporting those who do not necessarily need it. While we can show that lending is up, I am not convinced that it is getting to the right destination.

I would encourage the Government to consider using their borrowing powers—the trumpeted 2%, depending on the length of the bond—to borrow and lend directly to businesses. The announcement of the business bank is very welcome, but I fear that with an arrival date of late 2014 and only £1 billion available, it may be too little, too late. I am 100% behind the Government’s debt and deficit reduction plans and 100% behind the approach that they are taking, but we must put all our energy into finding ways to make access to finance easier, whether through lending at the rate at which we borrow or even subsidising it and lending at 0%. Lending a business £100,000 at 0% over a couple of years would cost a sum similar to the employment support allowance of £2,000 and it may well deliver significant economic growth and job creation. This is not unheard of. The Government already operate similar schemes. The Insolvency Service operates a scheme that supports businesses when they need to make difficult decisions to keep them in business. I would like the Government to explore how they might make access to finance easier.

The one thing that I am sure of is that only this Government and only those on the Government Benches have the drive, the energy, the commitment and the understanding to do what is right for this country, whether for small businesses, our own constituents, large businesses or the wider society. I am confident that only we will be able to sort out the toxic inheritance that we acquired and do the right thing. I hope that when the next election comes, we will be able to reap the benefits of that for the whole country.

Amendment of the Law

Debate between Bob Stewart and Stephen Metcalfe

Thursday 22nd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Obviously, any rise in cost base will have an impact, but we are working hard to reduce that to the absolute minimum, and we are putting in place a framework around which businesses can grow that will mitigate the 5.6% rise.

We all welcome the investment in infrastructure, which will be a driver for growth, although I add the caveat that I and my constituents remain wholly unconvinced that an airport in the Thames estuary is the right solution to maintaining our hub status. I would therefore encourage the Government to listen to my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt), who made a very good bid for that increased capacity in Birmingham.

I also want to put in a plea for small and medium-sized enterprises. In 2009, they accounted for 49% of private sector turnover. SMEs are vital to the economy. Cutting corporation tax, abolishing Labour’s job tax and offering support through the national loan guarantee scheme are all welcome, I am sure. However, if SMEs are to operate at their full potential, regulation, red tape and bureaucracy must be cut. They have been strangling the economy for too long. I am therefore encouraged to see measures that will allow greater freedoms for businesses in this area. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor’s announcement yesterday that he plans to reduce the number of UK SMEs required to undertake an audit and to reduce the burden of financial accounting for UK businesses has to be welcome. I hope that the consultation on a new cash basis for calculating tax, which the Federation of Small Businesses has welcomed, will benefit many small and micro-businesses, allowing them to concentrate on growing their businesses, rather than spending time, money and effort fulfilling requirements that were designed for much larger businesses.

[Bob Stewart]

As an expert, my hon. Friend will be able to confirm this, but I have heard that about 10% of what small businesses do is taken up with bureaucracy—filling in forms, and so on. Does he agree that we need to avoid that?

[Stephen Metcalfe]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. It varies from sector to sector, but that is not an unrealistic figure.

Finally, in the short time I have left, I want to talk about jobs. Businesses are vital for growth, but they are equally vital for tackling unemployment. I am delighted to see that unemployment is beginning to stabilise. Dealing with unemployment, through the building business and enterprise loans, will allow jobseekers to start their own businesses and unleash a new generation of entrepreneurs. However, we should not forget that our existing small and medium-sized enterprises have the potential to deliver sustained employment. We should redouble our efforts to create confidence for businesses to take on staff. I therefore reiterate my call to make it easier for firms to hire staff in the knowledge that employment regulation will support them if things do not work out.

As we emerge from the deepest recession in living memory, I applaud the Government’s commitment to addressing an over-leveraged economy, an unsustainable budget deficit and a broken model of growth, inherited from the previous Administration. Our plan of fiscal responsibility has allowed the UK to surge ahead of the curve. We have become a safe haven in the sovereign debt storm. As a result, we have been able to deliver record low interest rates for families, businesses and taxpayers, yet still remove millions of people from paying any tax at all, by increasing the tax threshold. Although we are not immune from events taking place on our own doorstep, we can—as this Government are demonstrating—steer this country out of a financial quagmire and deliver growth, employment and a future brighter than any alternative the Opposition may offer.