Support for Self-employed and Freelance Workers

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to support freelancers and self-employed people in my constituency who have fallen through the cracks of what I recognise has otherwise been an extremely generous financial package provided by the Treasury for so many people. As I have gone about my constituency over the past few months, so many people have thanked me—people in business and employees—for the support that they have received from the Chancellor. However, I want to use this opportunity to highlight three cases in my constituency.

The first is that of Andy Warren, a co-director of the long-established Congleton company Printing Group (UK) Ltd. He refers to the fact that dividend-receiving company owner-managers are effectively discriminated against from receiving support. He says:

“HMRC is happy to accept our word on our income tax returns (that are self-assessed), on our corporation tax returns (that are self-assessed), on the furlough claims we make for our staff, and on our entitlement to a bounce-back loan. We even have to self-declare that we have to repay child benefit. None of these are verified by a third-party, we are taken at our word. So why is it not acceptable regarding our dividends?”

Secondly, I would like to turn to the concerns expressed by another constituent, Dave Boutcher, who is a director of Thorn Distribution Ltd, a warehousing and distribution company with 15 staff. Neither he nor his co-director have received anything by way of benefit from any national scheme or council support package for themselves or their company. They have not even received any furlough money, due to a technicality on the payroll submission date, but being the honourable employers that they are, they have paid out some £100,000 of their own money to their staff, effectively furloughing their staff out of their own funds. I wrote to the Treasury about this on 13 May and received a generic reply letter on 8 September. I am asking the Treasury to look again at their case, which their accountant says is one of the worst they have seen in a system with no flexibility and no appeal.

Finally, I would like to talk about my constituent Lauren Scott, a self-employed musician. We have heard a lot about musicians in the debate, and I would like to tell the House about Lauren’s circumstances. Lauren is a highly professional harpist, and her husband Andy is a composer and teacher. Over the past 10 years of my being a Member of Parliament, no individuals have done more in my constituency to promote the arts, and particularly the engagement of young people in music, than Andy and Lauren Scott. I have heard Lauren perform many times as a harpist, and I have heard one of Andy’s pieces premiered at the Southbank Centre.

[Jim Shannon]

I commend the hon. Lady for what she has said. It is so important to foster talent, and if we do not provide the support now, that future talent could be lost forever.

[Fiona Bruce]

The hon. Member is absolutely right—it is about not just these people’s talent, but the next generation that they are nurturing.

Lauren says:

“I am a self-employed freelance musician of 25+ years. I have only ever been a professional musician. During that time I have always paid my taxes and never considered myself to be a burden on the state. I am highly regarded within my field and very often my work is booked into my diary up to 1-2 years in advance. All my concert work has been cancelled…Performing was 80% of my work/income and private teaching was 20%. The only work I now have is my teaching.

At the start of lock-down I applied for 18 jobs with local supermarkets for roles ranging from shelf stacking to driving delivery vans. I did not succeed with any of those applications. It appears that 25 years of playing guest principal harp with all the professional orchestras playing at the likes of the BBC Proms, recording live broadcasts and performing at all the major concerts venues across the country was not the right kind of experience Aldi and Tesco were after.

I will not be able to ‘get back to work’ when the current SEISS ends in October. By now my diary should be full of bookings for 2021, but promoters are not booking and I have nothing booked in for next year…

Please could you ask for there to be consideration to extend the SEISS for self-employed musicians and the Arts Sector. Having high quality live events happening in major venues… is precisely what is going to attract people to visit those city centres.”