Loan Charge

John McNally Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP)]

That was a phenomenally good speech. I also congratulate the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) on securing this debate and for his powerful and passionate speech, which was very impressive. I also thank the all-party group on the loan charge and taxpayer fairness and the Loan Charge Action Group for their diligent work on this very serious issue, and indeed my own constituents who have suffered greatly from this total injustice.

On 7 July 2021 I stated in this House that the loan charge was going to be the next Post Office scandal, and just look where we are with that today. Will it take another modern form of the stocks by way of a further ITV drama to expose and publicly humiliate HMRC or the Government into some action on the loan charge scandal? Unfortunately, it would seem so, but I certainly hope not.

As others have said, a vitally important part of the loan charge scandal is that these ordinary people were contract workers doing a job of work for somebody or some organisation that simply needed their services. Most importantly, they were workers, and as workers they were entitled to protection under the agency rules. The agency rules determine that their employer—be that the agency, the umbrella company or another body in the supply chain, or the end client itself—was liable to deduct the correct amount of PAYE and pay that to HMRC at the time, before paying the worker their salary. These companies simply did not do that. HMRC was well aware of the arrangements and, as has been said, did not pursue for tax any of the entities as the workers’ employer. HMRC was also well aware many years down the line that it was legally out of time to do so.

HMRC had, and still has, a duty to establish who the employer was and who was directing, controlling and supervising the worker who had been supplied. It has not done so; it has failed time and again to do so. Hence the invention of the retrospective loan charge to get around that very inconvenient and uncomfortable fact. It is entirely unacceptable to continue to hound ordinary workers with no rights or funds for legal defence against such a powerful Government body as HMRC.

This has all the hallmarks of the Post Office scandal. What is really vexatious and concerning is that HMRC continues to hoodwink MPs into believing that it is going after the promoters who put the workers into this abominable position, when we all know it is not doing so. A further issue is that these groups of companies—these promoters—that sold arrangements to freelancers have not only not been asked to pay a penny of the disputed tax, but their arrangements—“arrangements”—have caused the death of poor souls who were so distressed by the way they had been hounded and criminalised by HMRC that they took their own lives. We all know that HMRC has stated that a total of 10 people have taken their lives over this scandal; the figure is likely to be far more in reality, in this awful and unravelling scandal.

The number of people affected by the Post Office scandal is likely to be dwarfed by the number affected by the retrospective loan charge scandal, purely and simply because of the number of people affected—between 60,000 and 70,000 at the last count by HMRC, with the figure likely to rise far higher. Too many ordinary people are facing huge bills, and many of them have been suffering untold distress for many years, and in some cases personal harm and indeed suicide because of this ongoing retrospective loan charge scandal. The whole thing is an absolute mess.

I am sure that Ministers must by now be mindful of all these serious issues, so will the relevant finance Minister and the Government now speedily commit themselves to finally commissioning a truly independent review to deal with this mess wholly of HMRC’s own making, and thereby allow us as MPs and parliamentarians to help to right this grievous wrong?