Finance Bill

Debate between Chris Evans and James Duddridge

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

Before the soothsayers and the sketch writers say again that Labour is anti-something or other, I want to make something quite clear. [Interruption.] The sketch writer is in the Gallery, although perhaps I am being a little arrogant to think that anyone would want to report on one of my speeches. Before the press releases go out from Tory central office saying that Labour is anti-share save schemes all of a sudden, I want to make it clear that this party has always been in favour of shares to reward people for the work they do.

The best and most successful companies offer shares to their most successful employees. Indeed, I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to how successful a share save scheme can be by using the example—a Welsh example—of Admiral Insurance. In March 2013, it recorded a 15% increase in profits. In all, 6,500 members of staff at the Cardiff-based Admiral Group will get £3,000 in an employee share save scheme. Alastair Lyons, the chair, said at the time:

“I want to thank everyone who has helped us to create such a robust business”

in the past 20 years. People are more productive, happier and more contented when they are valued and, above all, when they feel valued. That is why the Admiral Group of companies are among the top 100 best places in the UK to work, which I am sure did not come about by trading in employee rights for shares.

Sometimes it seems that this Government are so intent on presenting some sort of radical, compassionate conservatism that they fumble around for an idea, before coming back to ideas that have failed time and again. Very often, it seems that this Government, like previous Tory-led Administrations, are fearful of employment rights, and I am not the only one saying that. According to even the independent Office for Budget Responsibility—if I may digress, Madam Deputy Speaker, the Government are resisting requiring that very body to audit all parties’ manifestos at the next general election—the flagship shares for rights scheme has been rejected by businesses, opened up a tax loophole and will lead to £1 billion being lost by the Exchequer. In the face of such criticism, it seems eminently sensible to support our amendment for it would compel the Treasury to report on the take-up of shares for rights, collect data on the scheme and publish further reports on shares for rights every year.

[James Duddridge]

Is there not a contradiction between the argument that the scheme will lose billions and saying that it is being taken up by nobody?

[Chris Evans]

I have the utmost respect for the hon. Gentleman, but he should allow me to develop the argument a bit further. As he knows very well, this is a Finance Bill, and the Opposition cannot move any amendments that relate to spending. A report is the only thing we can propose, and it would be eminently sensible. If we had the data, we would know what the uptake was. I would argue that the Government have to abandon their ill thought out “shares for rights” policy, which even the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies described as having

“all the hallmarks of another avoidance opportunity”.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) alluded to the Conservative employment Minister Lord Forsyth who described it as having

“the trappings of something that was thought up in the bath”—

by the Government on their own, I hope, although we don’t know with Tory sleaze! It is bad enough that this divisive policy undermines the concept of employee ownership and workers’ rights, but it could also cost the Exchequer up to £1 billion, a quarter of that arising from tax planning activity—the very tax planning activity that the Chancellor said he had clamped down on since he took office.

Fundamentally, the problem that employees have faced over the last 40 years with the end of heavy industry—it is a problem that comes with Governments of all stripes—is that most feel insecure in their jobs anyway. People do not have a job for life any more; they move around seven or eight types of jobs, but slashing employment rights at work is wrong in principle. It will not help create jobs and growth. It seems to me that this is a policy made up on the fly.

If anybody wants to know how ill-conceived this policy is, they need only look at some statistics. The scheme has not won the support of the business community. A 33-week consultation on the scheme—two thirds of the year, or nine months—had more than 200 responses. Of those, only five businesses said they would be interested in taking up the scheme.

I sometimes think I admire the Chancellor. He is an economist—of the highest rank, I have no doubt—but I wish he were here to explain how he came up with the line:

“Owners, workers and the taxman are all in it together”.

Where was the sense in that? It is just not fully worked out. Has he not asked the employer? If an employer has a bad employee, why would he want to give them shares and make them owners of the company? That does not make sense to me. The employee would then have voting rights over what the employer wanted to do. Why would an employee want shares in a company that had just dismissed him? It should be easier to hire than fire.

We need tax breaks for small businesses so that they can hire extra employees rather than throw away their employment rights. As a proud Labour and Co-op MP, I support employee ownership, but coupling it with slashing employment rights is contradictory and counter-productive. As the Employee Ownership Association has pointed out, boosting employee ownership

“does not require a dilution of rights”.

Even a city on the hill, the United States of America, where employee rights are certainly not in fashion, has criticised the scheme. The proposal reflects the “fire at will” recommendations of the controversial Beecroft report, authored by the Prime Minister’s employment tsar and Tory donor, Adrian Beecroft. Mr Beecroft admitted to MPs that his proposals were based not on any statistical or empirical evidence but on a “valid sample of people”. Who has he spoken to? No doubt the same Tories who have problems with the employment rights of anybody anywhere.

The scheme could also present considerable costs to business and create new administrative burdens. I believe that people are already being deterred from taking up the scheme. Alan Higham told The Guardian:

“I worry it would create suspicion among employees that I might sack them unfairly. Employees wouldn’t easily be able to see the value in the shares today…If I employ 10 staff and decided to give them £2,000 each of shares, then I would need to spend £10,000 in getting a professional valuation done. Under current tax rules I would also have paid them £2,000 each to change their contract, on which PAYE and national insurance would be charged. As this is a gift I would also have to pay tax on this. On this basis it could cost me £10,000 and a further £9,400 to give away £20,000 of shares. There will probably also be some sort of ongoing admin and HMRC compliance to do, which will also cost.”

Fundamental questions must be asked about this entire scheme. If the company goes bankrupt—if the employer is so bad that he runs his company into the ground—does the employee he has just sacked become responsible for any of the company’s losses? If the employee has shares in the company, of course he will.

Ministers are seeking to introduce this scheme without proper consultation and discussion. They have proceeded in a shambolic and chaotic way. That is reflected by the fact that the Second Reading of the Bill that became the Growth and Infrastructure Act 2013 took place before the consultation had closed.

Given that £10,600 of capital gains tax is already exempt, exemption from CGT in the scheme is only likely to benefit employee shareholders in a small minority of companies which achieve unusually high growth. There is also concern about the full cost of the scheme. Ministers originally claimed that it would be £100 in 2017-18, but according to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s contribution to the Treasury’s policy costing document, which was released along with the 2012 autumn statement 2012,

“the cost is expected to rise towards £1 billion”,

and the OBR concluded that

“uncertainties are around assumptions on take up rates, the average value of shares that are entered into the scheme, the extent of tax planning and the timing of disposals.”

What really concerns me is that a person could throw away all his employment rights in return for shares that could already be tumbling. There is no win-win situation for such people.

According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, a quarter of that £1 billion additional cost—£250 million—is expected to arise from tax avoidance as a result of the scheme. A Government who have been obsessive about tax avoidance seem to be creating another vehicle for people to avoid taxation. Following the publication of the Government’s response to the consultation scheme, a Government source was quoted as saying:

“The proposals are on life support.”

However, Ministers went ahead with them. I wonder whether this Minister knows who that person was, and whether he can enlighten us.

It seems to me that the scheme is unworkable. When “shares for rights” were discussed during the Committee stage of the Growth and Infrastructure Bill, the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), admitted that employees taking part in the scheme could be liable to pay income tax and national insurance on any shares received from employers over and above £2,000. That would impose a significant up-front cost on employees.

It is feared that there are other ways in which the scheme could have an adverse impact on employees. For example, will jobs be advertised as available only with employee shareholder status? In practice, will employers be able to impose the scheme on individual employees or groups of employees? What safeguards will there be to ensure that the scheme is voluntary for existing employees, as Ministers claim that it will be?

On behalf of the members of the Employee Ownership Association, chief executive lain Hasdell sent an open letter to the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), who is responsible for employment relations, consumer and postal affairs, expressing concern about recent developments in the Government’s approach to growing the number of employee owners in the economy. He said:

“'Our Members have three main concerns on this matter.

Firstly, proposed legislation has appeared in a Bill before the Government consultation on the possibility of deploying this model of employee ownership has finished. Indeed it has only just started.

Secondly, our Members are very aware that there is no need to reduce the rights of workers in order to grow employee ownership and no data to suggest that doing so would significantly boost the number of employee owners. Indeed all of the evidence is that employee ownership in the UK is growing and the businesses concerned thriving, because they enhance not dilute the working conditions and entitlements of employee owners.”

In that context, I remind the House of what I said about Admiral Insurance in Cardiff at the beginning of my speech. Iain Hasdell continued:

“Thirdly, the appearance of this measure in the Growth and Infrastructure Bill appears to our Members to be completely disconnected to the recommendations in the Nuttall Review. That Review contained a series of recommendations on how to grow employee ownership and none of those recommendations suggested the dilution of worker rights.”

I am not the only person who is saying these things, and that is why I believe that we should have a report. The criticism of this measure has been immense, from the business community and employment organisations to trade unions—some Members on the Government Benches will probably think I have sworn there. The Employee Ownership Association says:

“whilst growing employee ownership should be part of the UK’s Industrial Policy, such growth does not require a dilution of the rights and working conditions of employees.”

Brendan Barber, TUC general secretary, said:

“We deplore any attack on maternity provision or protection against unfair dismissal, but these complex proposals do not look as if they will have very much impact, as few small businesses will want to tie themselves up in the tangle of red tape necessary to trigger these exemptions.”

There, in a nutshell, is the problem: there is low take-up; it is very complicated; people are not interested. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North said, we see maternity provision, a hard-fought right that many people argued and fought for and in some cases gave their lives for, being given up for the whim of a few shares in a company that could be either taken over or finished in a couple of years.

Mike Emmett, employee relations adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, says:

“The UK has one of the least regulated labour markets in the world and there is little evidence to suggest that employment regulation is preventing small businesses from taking people on. In fact, according to the Government’s own research, unfair dismissal doesn’t even figure in the list of top ten regulations discouraging them from recruiting staff. Employees have little to gain by substituting their fundamental rights for uncertain financial gain and employers have little to gain by creating a two tier labour market.”