Finance Bill

Duncan Baker Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting & Report: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 2nd July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

Last but not least is the saying, I suppose, Madam Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) gave a fantastic speech, putting it far more succinctly than I will probably be able to. I must also say that my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) does not look old enough to have been studying the Finance Bill for the last 25 years—that is quite something. The Treasury has made an incredible effort in preparing the Bill and in all the work that has been put together over the last few months to safeguard our economy through this pandemic, and it should be widely praised.

I shall talk about the digital services tax from two perspectives. Again, the Treasury should be roundly applauded for the tax’s hugely progressive nature. As we heard yesterday, it is a pioneering tax, but I wonder whether we can be even more pioneering. The two perspectives are these: first, by being more pioneering, we can go further and help to save the high street; and secondly, it is all very well saying that we need to do that, but we have to have a solution to be able to do that. This is nothing new—I have been talking about retailing and the high street since I became a Member of this House, and I like to think that given my previous career, I am able to talk a bit about that. However, given the pandemic, the digital services tax, in my view, cannot come quick enough, and I wonder now whether we can go even quicker. What we are seeing is a structural change to the high street, and it is of course incredibly worrying when we listen to the news in the morning and hear of bellwethers, such as John Lewis and Harrods beginning to struggle.

I have long believed that it is absolutely key that all our companies pay their fair share of tax, regardless of industry. If they create value in this country, they should be taxed in this country. That is not only bold and brave, but fit and proper. Taxing those companies is more pertinent than ever, because the incomes and profits that they generate are eating away into the more traditional businesses’ market share when they are the very ones that are paying their fair share of tax and suffering as a result of the digital platforms’ dominance. When Google is reported to have paid less than £50 million in UK tax last year and Facebook to have paid £30 million on sales of £1.5 billion, it is absolutely right that the Government are bringing this legislation in as quickly as they are. For me, this is not about taxing those with a competitive advantage, but a move in the correct direction of fairness and equality. As the Government have said, should we find a global solution to this problem, we will probably abolish this tax, making it to all intents and purposes temporary.

Of course, this is not just about taxing the Facebooks, Googles and Twitters of this world; it is more encompassing than that, and it will focus on intermediaries as well. For me, that is a really good thing, because I would like to think that the digital services tax is a bridge to where we should be going. That is the crux of my argument. I do not think at the moment the digital services tax does quite enough—I wonder whether we can go a bit further—and I will just bring out the reason for that. I would like to see some kind of online sales tax levied on online retail sales as a way to support the high street. This would enable the Treasury to take the step, which we know it wants to take, of abolishing retail business rates for good. That would level up an industry sector that is seeing technological shift erode it year after year. The DST is a stepping stone to where we want to be.

At the moment, online sales in retailing are approximately £80 billion, and their share of total retail sales has now grown from 5% when records first started to nearly 20% of all UK retail sales. That means that retailing through traditional bricks-and-mortar stores in towns and cities across the country, which employ millions of people, is being completely eroded by sales moving online, where cost bases are much smaller and profits can grow quickly. Just as we are getting a grip on online marketplaces, I wonder whether we can move on this issue as well.

What coronavirus has done is see a further step change in reduced footfall on the high street. People are doing two things: not only are they not going out, in order to avoid crowded areas, but those that have been inside have converted—we have seen evidence that they have converted, with 48% of all retail sales in supermarket shopping now being online.

If the Government would like to think about abolishing retail rates, they should consider some form of VAT-style levy on retail online sales. If we take £8 billion as the current total of UK retail rates, a VAT-style levy of a few percentage points on those total sales at the moment could pay immediately for half of the amount of abolishing those rates. Surely, that is something we would want to think about sooner rather than later to help.

I will finish by saying that I really welcome the boldness of this Bill, and I really welcome the boldness of the digital services tax. I think we are now turning to face the right direction for what I believe is a real institution in this country—shopping on our high streets—and it only leaves me to say to the Treasury Minister that I commend this Bill to the House. I wonder if we can go even further, but I think it is a fantastic step in the right direction.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.