Finance Bill

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 1st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

In this part of our debate, we are talking about jobs. Today the Government launched the flexible furlough scheme, and flexibility needs to be the watchword of our response and how we consider the economy. We are emerging, blinking in the sunlight from lockdown, and our businesses are blinking too, in the light of the new economic reality. Things will never be the same. Things have changed irrevocably, and we have learned a lot about our society, volunteering and our communities. We have learned a lot too about how business will need to change and adapt.

The drivers of that change—the adapters—are the consultants and contractors in our professional services sector, which provides such immense value to our economy and also revenue to the Exchequer. These are the people who bring the sparkle of innovation. They are the lubricant of the cogs of capitalism. They are the critical friend to beleaguered boards and exhausted executives. These are the people who are caught up in the IR35 reforms. I welcome the decision of my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to postpone the introduction of those reforms until next spring. I am sure that, in the short term, that decision will have reassured many who face huge challenges in retooling our economy, reorganising the businesses that provide those jobs and repositioning and repurposing our private sector.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

Does the hon. Member perhaps wonder, as I do, if postponing does not simply extend the period of stress for people who are waiting to find out? I was curious about that.

[Ben Everitt]

The hon. Member has perhaps read my speech. That postponement is quite problematic, and in fact I am sure I am far from alone on the Benches either side of this Chamber when I say that I wish it were not postponed, but were cancelled.

However, we can learn lessons. I welcome the commitment to review the implementation of IR35 in the public sector because, frankly, this is about the implementation of such schemes. The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) noted some similarities between the loan charge and IR35. I think the biggest similarity is the fact that both have been implemented in a way that one could describe as a sledgehammer to crack a nut. These nuts are important to our economy, and I hope that we can learn some lessons and implement such schemes in a way that captures the essence of what we want to do, which is obviously to crack down on elaborate and excessive tax avoidance and, indeed, in the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), simplify our tax system and make it more efficient and more productive, but we must have an equitable and fair system—a system that empowers growth, but ensures that we benefit from a buoyant economy.

The ability of a flexible workforce to assist our businesses, large and small, across the economy in this time of particular economic turmoil will be crucial to our recovery, and it is one that we must not curtail. We must not risk squandering the competitive advantage that our British spirit—our consultancy sector, our contractors, our professional services—gives to the UK economy as we look to bounce back or, in the words of a Prime Minister, bounce back better, bounce back faster and bounce back greener. Many contractors and consultants will be watching this debate today and looking to the Treasury Bench for some hope, and some sign that they are not forgotten and that this Government recognise them as part of the solution to our economic woes, not part of the problem we face.