Oral Answers to Questions

Justin Madders Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Richard Harrington]

I can confirm that the police and anti-fraud authorities are involved in this cross-governmental body.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

2. What assessment he has made of recent trends in the level of self-employment.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Damian Green)]

This Government support those who aspire to be their own boss. Self-employment grew by 148,000—3.2%—in the last year to reach a record level of 4.8 million. Self-employment has contributed 30% of the rise in employment since 2010 to the current record levels.

[Justin Madders]

It seems that not a week goes by without another story emerging of the outrageous treatment of the self-employed. This is exploitation. The Deane review of self-employment reported back to the Government over a year ago, and one recommendation it made was that there should be equal treatment for the self-employed, but all we have is yet another review from the Government. When will they actually take some action?

[Damian Green]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Government have commissioned Matthew Taylor to review the rights and protections available to self-employed workers. He asked what we have already done. The self-employed now have access to the new state pension, worth an extra £1,800 a year in retirement. We have doubled the amount of free childcare, which is particularly useful for the self-employed and worth up to £5,000 per child per year. We have also increased the personal allowance, worth £1,000, to the typical basic rate taxpayer.