David Gauke
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National Insurance Contributions Bill
David Gauke Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Bill before us consists of two parts. The first part introduces a 1% increase in the rate of national insurance contributions from April next year, as announced by the previous Government, although let me assure my right hon. and hon. Friends that we will reverse the impact of this jobs tax through an increase in the employer national insurance threshold. We have already announced the increase in the income tax personal allowance.
Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for giving way. What is the net impact on employers of the 1% increase offset by the increase in threshold? What is the impact on individual businesses?
Mr Gauke
Compared with the plans that we inherited, the impact of the increase in threshold will be such that employers will pay £3 billion less in employer’s national insurance contributions. The overall reduction of the burden on employment will be £6 billion as a consequence of the overall package.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Will the Minister confirm, however, that about £1.4 billion is not being compensated for by the threshold? I want us to be clear. He says that he has offset the threshold, but he has offset only about £3 billion, not the whole amount of the rise.
Mr Gauke
The fact is that the Labour party would have raised the full amount. We are offsetting £3 billion, which will be most helpful for employers whose employees earn under £20,000. The package is good for employment and, given the fiscal mess that we inherited, I am very proud that this Government are able to reform national insurance contributions exactly as we set out in our manifesto at the general election, and in the coalition agreement.
As far as we can deduce it, the Labour party’s position is that it wants to do more to reduce the deficit by raising taxation and it does not believe in increasing VAT, which will bring in £13 billion a year. We can assume only that it would favour greater increases in national insurance contributions than it had already set out.
We are not going to take any lectures; this Government have managed to reverse a very painful and damaging policy that would have meant employers’ contributions rising for every single employee paying national insurance—and in a way that would have damaged jobs in this country.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
Is the Minister aware that the proposals in the Bill discriminate against many areas—in London, in particular—with above-average unemployment? Will he explain to people in my constituency, where according to the Library there is already 6.6% unemployment, why on earth the national insurance contribution holiday does not apply to them?
Stephen Pound
That is extremely generous of the Minister. All I can say is that if he was surprised, imagine how I felt.
The Minister just gave the figure for receipts following on from the increase in VAT. Are his figures based on current patterns of consumption or on an anticipated level of consumption? Most economists would say that the VAT increase will depress demand and reduce consumption.
Mr Gauke
The sums are based on the assessment made by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility at the time of the Budget. I hope that that provides some clarification to the hon. Gentleman.
Part 1 of the Bill provides for changes, which the previous Government announced in two instalments, to national insurance contributions from next April. Initially, a 0.5% increase in rates was announced in the 2008 pre-Budget report. That was then changed to a 1% increase in the pre-Budget report of the following year.
I am sure that Members will remember that reversing the most significant impacts of those rate rises was a key issue at the general election. The Federation of Small Businesses said that the policy would cost 57,000 jobs. Thirty business leaders supported our campaign to reverse the policy. When the letter from those 30 business leaders—many other business leaders followed shortly—was published, Tony Blair apparently considered that for Labour the game was up. Thankfully, he was right, and we now have in place a Government who are determined to bring down the deficit but also to put in place conditions favourable to private sector-led growth.
In June, we announced our plan to reverse the most damaging aspects of Labour’s jobs tax. There was a choice how best to do this—for example, we could have cancelled the rate and threshold rises—but we have chosen the option that best protects low earners. In the emergency Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor confirmed that national insurance contribution rates would rise by 1%, that the personal allowance would increase by £1,000 from next April, and that the employer national insurance contribution threshold would rise by £21 a week plus indexation. The reform of employer national insurance contributions is exactly as set out in the 2010 Conservative party manifesto.
The Bill sets out how these rises will apply to the main rates of class 1 national insurance contributions. The employer rate will rise from 12.8% to 13.8% and the employee main rate will rise from 11% to 12%. The 1% increase will also apply to class 1A and 1B contributions that are paid on benefits in kind and pay-as-you-earn settlement agreements. The same 1% rise will apply to class 4 contributions paid by the self-employed, which will rise from 8% to 9%. Taking into account the increase in the personal allowances and employer threshold, the net effect of these changes will reverse the damaging £6 billion-a-year net increase in the cost of labour planned by Labour Members. Our package of measures entirely reverses this increase.
Compared with the plans that this Government inherited, no changes are being made to the rates. More than £3 billion a year is being returned to employers through the threshold increase, and even more to individuals through the increase in the personal allowance. Our actions will mean that some 880,000 low earners in the UK will be taken out of income tax altogether.
Mr Love
The hon. Gentleman mentions low earners. Of course, the thing that the Conservatives did not put in their manifesto was that they would raise VAT. They talked about national insurance being a tax on jobs, but is it not correct to say that the rise in VAT will destroy more jobs than the national insurance increase would have done?
Mr Gauke
No. We agree with the view of Tony Blair and, apparently, the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer that VAT is the right tax to raise if one wants to get a substantial sum of money. The hon. Gentleman will find that most economists take the view that in terms of the impact on jobs, increasing employers’ national insurance contributions is far more damaging than any increase in VAT.
As a result of the package of measures that we are putting in place, employees earning under £35,000 a year will pay less in income tax and national insurance contributions overall, and employers will pay less national insurance on employees earning under £20,000 a year. As well as the 880,000 low earners taken out of income tax, almost 1 million low earners will no longer pay national insurance contributions, while the number of low earners for whom employers pay no national insurance contributions will rise by about 650,000. It is also worth mentioning that people who will now be exempt from paying national insurance will retain the same entitlement to contributory benefits. However, tackling the deficit remains the priority, and the benefits to low earners could be achieved only through the increase in national insurance contribution rates included in the Bill. This decision is fair and progressive, and it will help to support the poorest and most vulnerable in society.
Let me turn to part 2 of the Bill. In the June Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced an employer national insurance contribution holiday for new businesses in countries and regions with a high dependency on the public sector. This holiday will apply across Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and many regions of England—the north-east, the north-west, Yorkshire and the Humber, the west midlands and east midlands, and the south-west. Those areas have a higher proportion of jobs in the public sector than the rest of the country, and as we take the much-needed steps to rebalance our economy, it is vital that they benefit from additional support.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
There is no doubt that one welcomes this package of measures, which will help the lower paid in particular. However, will my hon. Friend revisit the Government’s decision to exclude businesses in the south-east from the national insurance holiday? Otherwise, it could be seen to discriminate against local entrepreneurs there and hit the areas that need higher employment.
Mr Gauke
I understand my hon. Friend’s point, but the fact is that we have limited resources and have inherited a legacy in which the private sector is relatively strong in some areas, such as his constituency and mine, but much weaker in others. At a time when we cannot rely on massive public spending, and when the public sector will have to find economies, it is perfectly reasonable that we have adopted the approach of focusing on areas where there is high dependence on the public sector.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
I am very supportive of the proposal in general terms, but when the Government came to their decision on it, did they consider extending it to existing businesses with very small work forces of one or two people as opposed to simply new starts, and did they consider what the cost of that might have been?
Mr Gauke
The focus of the policy has always been on start-up businesses. It is an attempt to encourage new businesses to be set up, given where we are in the economic cycle and the need to encourage private sector growth. That is why the Conservative party’s policy before the general election was focused on start-ups. After the election we considered how best to introduce the policy, and came to the view that we should include the regions where the private sector was at its weakest.
Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)
If the scheme cannot be extended to an entire region, does the Exchequer Secretary accept that there will be pockets of that region, such as my constituency, that would benefit massively from it? The area has historically had very low new business start-up rates and would benefit from what I think is an excellent scheme. When I asked his Department about the costs of administering the scheme in such areas, it said that they would be prohibitive, but I cannot understand why that would be. Can he elaborate on that?
Mr Gauke
If we were to choose precisely where the policy applied on a much more closely defined geographical basis, we would have difficulties such as distortive behaviour, problems in enforcing the policy, the bureaucracy that may be involved, the need to establish where a company’s principal place of business was, and the difficulty of policing the scheme. Also, labour markets tend to be somewhat larger than constituency or even local authority areas. My hon. Friend is right to highlight the circumstances in Portsmouth, but there are neighbouring seats with a very low level of public sector employment and quite a high level of private sector employment. Such labour market flexibility can exist.
Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)
I take my hon. Friend’s points about the limited resources, the risk of bureaucracy and the difficulty of policing the scheme, but Robert Chote, while he was still at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, described the regional relief scheme as
“complicated…prone to avoidance and oddly targeted.”
I have had a number of representations to that effect. What assurance can my hon. Friend give that the scheme will not be accompanied by an enormous amount of extra regulation and a much higher compliance burden?
Mr Gauke
My hon. Friend raises a fair point. We are determined that in administering the scheme, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs will adopt a light touch as much as possible. The problems of bureaucracy and avoidance would be much greater if we tried to drill down to constituency or local authority level as opposed to regional level. I assure him that our assessment is that gains for participating businesses will greatly outweigh any administrative costs that they may face.
George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)
It occurs to me that this is a particularly prescribed aspect of the Bill with three particular areas identified. Will the Minister consider taking powers to himself that allowed him not just to exclude areas, but to keep a register of those he felt could be excluded, therefore allowing some flexibility? Should labour markets deteriorate markedly in certain areas, he could then revisit his decision and decide to support certain areas.
Mr Gauke
What we must bear in mind is that we have limited resources. If we were to extend this measure to every part of the country, the cost would increase by around 70%—in other words, £660 million over the course of three years. For the reasons that I set out, it would be difficult to drill this down to very precise areas.
Mr Gauke
I must make some more progress.
If we are to move to a model of economic growth founded on private sector enterprise and investment, it is important that we encourage the formation of new business. For that reason, the holiday applies only to businesses that have been set up since 22 June, the date of the Budget. To ensure affordability, the holiday is limited to the first 10 employees taken on in the first 12 months of business. For each of those workers, the holiday will last for a single year, unless the closing date for the scheme—5 September 2013—is reached before the 12 months is up.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
I have listened very carefully to the Minister. Some 40% of the people in employment in my constituency work in the public sector. I represent some of the most deprived wards in London, which means some of the most deprived in the country, yet my constituency will be excluded from the holiday, whereas certain leafier parts, outside London and the south-east, will be included.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
I welcome this measure. It is just the thing to spur on the private sector. In evidence to the Treasury Committee, Alan Clarke said that it was a “particularly encouraging measure”. Mr Whiting, of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, said that it was a
“worthwhile experiment for the small, new business with new employees.”
This is just the sort of measure to encourage the private sector that the House should be passing.
Mr Gauke
I am grateful for that intervention. We have to build this private sector recovery. This measure is a useful contribution, particularly to those regions where the private sector is not as strong as elsewhere. It is a transitional measure, scheduled to end in three years. We are committed to monitoring and evaluating its effectiveness over that period to ensure its success.
It is not our intention for this policy disproportionately to benefit businesses that employ highly paid staff. For that reason, the maximum amount that an employer can profit from any single employee is limited to £5,000. That cap ensures that the policy will not distort European Union markets and that it complies with state aid legislation. We do not expect any significant competitive disadvantage to arise either for existing businesses or for new businesses in regions where the holiday does not apply. The Bill also makes provision for the administration of this measure. Businesses benefiting from the holiday can withhold the employer contributions from the monthly payments they make to HMRC. If the payment cannot be withheld, the businesses can apply to HMRC for a refund. That will help to minimise employers’ costs as well as the costs of delivery.
The Government expect that hundreds of thousands of businesses will benefit from the measure over the next three years. In the Budget, we estimated that new businesses would save hundreds of millions of pounds worth of national insurance contributions during the lifetime of the scheme, giving them the ability to hire more staff, expand their business or invest in the recovery.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
The Government correctly emphasise the importance of the voluntary sector, and it is likely that there will be a surge in the number of charities that are set up. I declare an interest as a trustee of Stafford Works, which is a new charity. Will the Minister confirm whether charitable trusts and companies are included in the scope of part 2 of the Bill?
Mr Gauke
A charitable entity that is located in one of the relevant regions and that carries on a trade, vocation or business will benefit. That is likely to apply to, for example, shops that are run by charities. Such entities must meet that criterion to benefit, but not all charities will necessarily do so.
Mr Gauke
At this early stage, we have had around 1,000 applications, but we expect more as awareness of the policy becomes greater and as businesses contact their professional advisers. We are keen to publicise the policy, and I encourage hon. Members for any of the relevant regions to notify businesses in their areas. The Government and our policy aim to help businesses and those who want to start a business and get it going. In contrast, the previous Government increased such taxes. Start-up and existing businesses throughout the country faced rising taxes and employers’ national insurance contributions, which was a particularly deeply damaging tax.
The Bill is an important part of the Government’s plan to reduce Labour’s taxation, help those on the lowest incomes, and support private enterprise and employment in the parts of the country that need them most. It is a simple and important Bill, and I commend it to the House.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Minister for his exposition of the Bill. We will test aspects of it in Committee and at other stages in its passage. As he said, it divides effectively into two parts. The first part is the increase in national insurance contributions by 1%, which we will support because we want to ensure that we protect services and support our economy. The second part introduces a three-year regional national insurance holiday for new employers. As the Minister said, many businesses will qualify for their first 10 employees in their first year of business; I shall return later in detail to the question of the regions and areas that will not qualify.
Let us first consider the national insurance contributions. The Minister rightly said that this policy was set out both in the Labour manifesto and elsewhere in the period before the general election in May. My right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), the then Chancellor, announced in the pre-Budget statement on 9 December 2009 that the previous Government would increase national insurance contributions by 1% to protect public services. We had a choice, and we were straight about it both before and during the election. Raising national insurance contributions was a tough decision, but we ensured that we would protect those earning less than £20,000 a year.
The Conservatives condemned that national insurance rise throughout the election, but—surprise, surprise!—they have now decided to go ahead with it. In the Conservative manifesto, which I have come to recognise is not worth the paper it was written on, the party committed itself to raising the thresholds for national insurance by £24 a week, the upper earnings limit by £29 a week, and the secondary threshold at which employers start paying national insurance by £21 a week. I look forward to seeing the details in the secondary legislation.
My intervention on the Exchequer Secretary showed that although the Government are raising the thresholds, there is still a shortfall of about £1.4 billion in employer national insurance contributions. The Labour party was open about that in the run-up to, and during, the general election, but the Conservative party was not. In my view, this is all smoke and mirrors.
Mr Gauke
Page 8 of our manifesto stated that we would
“raise the secondary threshold at which employers start paying National Insurance by £21 a week.”
The secondary legislation will increase the secondary threshold at which employers start paying national insurance by £21 a week, so we are doing exactly what we said in the manifesto.
Mr Hanson
But there were no caveats about a shortfall in the Budget proposals of about £1.4 billion. I think it is smoke and mirrors—and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr Love) said, it is coupled with the increase in VAT from next year. The VAT rise will impact more than three times as much as the increase to national insurance contributions would have done, and will affect 250,000 jobs.
Mr Hanson
I have said what I have said. We were open and honest during the election campaign, and we will support the rise proposed in the Bill, because we expected to do that. During the election campaign, the Economic Secretary and the Exchequer Secretary attacked the NIC rise without proposing the alternative that they have seen through in practice.
Let us put that aside, because the key issue before the House is the payment holiday. We do not believe that it is being proposed fairly, honestly or openly, and we do not believe that it will help the poorest and most deprived areas of the UK, which in great part are excluded from the scheme. Of the top 12 most deprived local authorities on the economic deprivation index, no fewer than seven will be excluded from the payment holiday. The seven boroughs of Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Islington, Barking and Dagenham, Haringey and Lambeth are excluded from the scheme.
In his written statement on 6 September, the Exchequer Secretary said:
“The Government are determined that all parts of the UK benefit from sustainable economic growth”.—[Official Report, 6 September 2010; Vol. 515, c. 1WS.]
If we are having a holiday from national insurance contributions, I do not understand how excluding those areas from the payment holiday will do that.
I want to challenge the Government’s logic. They claim that the reasoning behind the policy is that areas outside London, the south-east and the east are more reliant on public sector employment. Will the Exchequer Secretary confirm that that is his logic?
Mr Hanson
The Minister has confirmed that. Tomorrow’s business leaders who want to start businesses in the constituencies of Oxford East, of Luton North, of Lewisham East, of Canterbury, of Southampton, Test, of Eltham, of West Ham, of North Thanet, of Hackney North and Stoke Newington, of Tooting, of Islington North, of Dulwich and West Norwood, and of Brighton, Kemptown will miss out. I mention those constituencies specifically because they are in the top 10% in the country with the highest percentage of public sector employment.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, there are 650 constituencies. His policy is supposed to help compensate for possible loss of employment in the public sector. Those concerns have been reflected today, and I pay tribute to the hon. Members for Portsmouth North, for Meon Valley and for Basildon and Billericay, who have defended their constituencies and raised their concerns about how the policy will be applied.
If there is to be a holiday, it can be applied in different ways. It could be applied regionally, as the Minister has done, or on the basis of unemployment levels or regional levels of public sector employment per constituency, instead of the blanket regional approach that the Minister has chosen.