National Insurance Contributions Bill

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

5: Clause 5, page 3, line 35, at end insert “, or
( ) a non-trading charity

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, we debated this issue in Committee and it was the subject of debate in the other place as well. However, we found the Government’s response to this amendment and the concept behind it somewhat unconvincing. Their view seems to be that this measure, in this Bill, revolves around what they define as the wealth-creating sector. That seems, by definition, to exclude charities from consideration. Why should the Bill be subject to this narrow definition, which seems to suggest that charities do not contribute to wealth in our society? That view is buttressed by the Government’s arguments that reflect the very narrow definition of what they regard as the nation’s wealth. In other words, it is to do with jobs but not public welfare—it is about people being employed but not what they are employed to do. In other words, it has nothing to do with quality of life.

I know that the Minister will regard my presentation of these arguments as indulging in a flight of fancy that is a little different from the day-to-day preoccupations of the Treasury. However, I ask noble Lords to consider the obvious point that in these difficult times we should give hope to our people, as this measure seeks to do. We should give help and support to those thousands of our fellow citizens who will lose their jobs in the public sector as the Government say that they cannot afford to employ them all. They rarely deploy the argument which they use regularly at party conferences and elsewhere, when rhetoric plays its part, that they wish to reduce the size of the state as they consider that that would benefit the nation. In reducing the size of the state they are, by definition, reducing the number of people in public employment not because they cannot be afforded but because, in the Government’s opinion, society is better when the Government play a smaller part. The House will not be surprised to hear that we take a somewhat different view about wealth and the virtues of public employment.

The previous amendment was directed at those parts of the country which the Minister indicated were more dependent on public sector employment which is to be subjected to such a serious assault from the government cutbacks. Why can we not help these areas by creating jobs in bodies such as non-trading charities? Of course, I appreciate that it will be a modest contribution and I subscribe to the view that the noble Lord will no doubt put forward in his reply that the Bill overwhelmingly concentrates on businesses which create wealth. I am not in any way, shape or form against that endeavour. In fact, my party has made clear that it supports the development of small businesses. However, I am against exclusion for no obvious good reason. I do not see why non-trading charities should not be included.

The Minister’s argument in Committee partly revolved round the fact that the matter is said to be outside the main purposes of this legislation and that we should not bring in something that is somewhat extraneous. However, the number of Bills which the Treasury can introduce over the year is fairly limited. The noble Lord will be all too well aware of the fact that apart from the Finance Bill, in which this feature is scarcely likely to be addressed, Treasury Bills, other than those which have a very specific operation, are few and far between as the Treasury competes with other departments for legislative time in both Houses. We therefore propose an amendment of a most modest but beneficial kind that—even if the Minister thinks it is not entirely appropriate to the main purposes of this modest measure—is not far distant from the objective of creating jobs on a very small scale in areas where public employment is being reduced. I maintain that non-trading charities can play a modest part in creating those jobs.

Given the government arguments thus far—and that is why we are continuing this debate beyond Committee—I see no reason why the amendment should not commend itself to the Government, and that is why I commend it to the House. I beg to move.

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, the noble Lords who put their name to the amendment have again raised the issue of making non-trading charities eligible for the employers national insurance contribution holiday. This matter was debated at some length in Committee and I again suspect that what I am going to say will not come as a huge surprise to the noble Lords concerned. Nevertheless, I will do my best to persuade them to withdraw the amendment.

I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, was going to go off on some flight of fancy. I do not think that he went off on any flight of fancy, and he kept entirely to areas that the Treasury takes extremely seriously. I was therefore disappointed, because I expected the noble Lord to go down some exotic new avenue—but he did not.

However, in the first half of his remarks, he did not recognise that an important group of charities will get the benefit of this holiday. It is important for me to confirm that new charities in qualifying areas are eligible for the holiday if they are carrying on a business. I appreciate that the noble Lord later on in his remarks started to distinguish between trading and non-trading charities, but this is an important point. For example, were employees to be taken on for a charitable trade, such as providing education or healthcare services, the charity is potentially eligible for this generous relief. Amendment 5 would specifically extend eligibility to new non-trading charities in qualifying areas. As, to be fair, the noble Lord recognises, this would not support the Government’s objective of encouraging new entrepreneurs to set up businesses in areas with a high proportion of public sector employment. The noble Lord suggested that his amendment would be a nice-to-have add-on, if I may crudely paraphrase him. However, he recognised that it does not chime in with the core purpose of the Bill.

Just as we have other ways of supporting regions that are not covered by the holiday, the Government of course have other important ways in which they support the critical work of charities, not least in their contribution to the big society. We provide substantial support to charities and charitable giving with tax reliefs worth more than £3 billion each year. Gift aid and relief from non-domestic rates are each worth around £1 billion a year. I remind noble Lords that, across the UK, charities that are employers will also benefit from the increase in the employers national insurance contribution threshold by £21 a week, plus indexation, that comes into effect on 6 April.

--- Later in debate ---

In conclusion, the scheme specifically targets new businesses that create new employment in areas that require it most. If a new charity were carrying on a business, of course it would qualify, but extending the holiday to non-trading charities would greatly complicate the scheme. Rather than channel resources through this scheme and impose administrative burdens on new charities, the Government consider that it is more efficient to provide support through existing mechanisms to all charities, as well as significant benefits, in the ways that I have outlined. Therefore, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his precise exposition of the Government’s case against the amendment in principle. I do not think that we need the overkill of the technical limitations of the amendment. It is rare for the Opposition to table amendments that do not have certain technical imperfections, but when a Government have the will, they certainly have the way to get past those imperfections. Of course, the Minister is really piling Pelion upon Ossa. He is saying that he is not having this amendment at any price on a fairly straightforward and clear principle; nevertheless, so far as the Opposition are concerned, the argument is made on unconvincing grounds. However, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 5 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

7: After Clause 10, insert the following new Clause—
“Annual report by the Treasury
( ) The Treasury shall, following the day on which this Act is passed, review the operation of the regional holiday scheme under Part 2 of this Act, and provide an annual report to Parliament.
( ) Each annual report shall set out, by region—
(a) the number of businesses availing themselves of the secondary contributions holiday;(b) the number of employees designated as qualifying employees under the scheme;(c) the total expenditure saved by businesses under the scheme; and(d) an assessment of the demand to apply the regional holiday to different areas of the country.”

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, this amendment again relates to an issue that we addressed in Committee. On that occasion, the Minister gave us the benefit of his perspective on this matter and indicated the ways in which the Government would be held properly accountable for their work in this area, as in all aspects of Treasury matters, and indeed wider than that.

The amendment relates to the specific nature of the holiday. We are seeking an annual report in the terms adumbrated by the amendment because this is a most interesting scheme. If not experimental, the scheme certainly has a significant dimension, which is, as we discussed when we debated the earlier amendments on the regional aspects of the scheme, the control factor attached to it. The scheme will operate in the majority of the country, although it will exclude the south-east, London and the eastern region. Therefore, after a year, we shall be able to see how much progress has been made on job creation for those who have lost their position and where there are fewer jobs in the public service and we shall have a control position as regards those regions that are not in the scheme. We may be able to see the benefit of this initiative by the Government.

To my noble friends on the Front Bench, that seems to be a good reason why we should have a precise annual report on this scheme and on how it has worked. Although I quite understand that the Minister’s defence is likely to be that the Treasury is always open and accountable and that it has measures whereby it makes matters explicit to the nation, I would not be the first noble Lord to have to confess, even with the experience of being on the Treasury Bench, that from time to time there has been a degree of obscurity that makes it extremely difficult to analyse just what has transpired in schemes and their effectiveness. This amendment would give the Treasury a golden opportunity, after one year, to make quite clear the success or otherwise of the scheme, which we wish success. I beg to move.

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, Amendment 7 would insert a new clause into the Bill with the aim of requiring the Treasury, following the day on which the Act is passed, to review the operation of the regional employer NICs holiday under Part 2 of the Bill and to provide an annual report to Parliament. The amendment would require the annual report to contain information by region. At the risk of being accused of piling Pelion on Ossa, it is important to get the comparison between what is proposed by this amendment and what I shall go on to say the Government propose to do. It is important to get it straight. I hope that I am not going into any unnecessary detail but I will clarify what is going on in the proposed amendment and what the Government seek to do.

The amendment requires that the annual report should contain, by region,

“(a) the number of businesses availing themselves of the secondary contributions holiday;

(b) the number of employees designated as qualifying employees under the scheme;

(c) the total expenditure saved by businesses under the scheme; and

(d) an assessment of the demand to apply the regional holiday to different areas of the country”.

As I said in Committee when we discussed amendments of a similar nature, I think that this amendment is motivated by a wish to encourage transparency—the noble Lord, Lord Davies, has confirmed that—and to ensure that proper consideration is given to how the holiday operates in practice. I shall attempt to explain to noble Lords why the amendment is unnecessary.

First, as I said in Committee, my honourable friend the Exchequer Secretary explained in the Public Bill Committee in another place that there is no budget as such for the scheme. Anybody contemplating starting up a new business can be confident that there is no budgetary constraint on the scheme. The holiday will continue as proposed regardless of how many successful applications are made. If a large number of additional new businesses are formed as a result of the policy, this would help to increase Exchequer revenues. The expected costs of the scheme were set out in the policy costing document at Budget 2010.

Secondly, on the point on which the noble Lord, Lord Davies, focused his remarks, the Government are committed to increasing the transparency of tax policy-making and of the tax system more generally. To that end, I am happy to repeat the undertaking, which I have mentioned before at different stages of this Bill, made by my honourable friend the Exchequer Secretary in another place to provide to Parliament and the public updates before the end of the calendar year on the operation of the scheme, including information at regional level. As I said in Committee, we envisage a factual report regionally and nationally covering the number of new businesses applying, the number of applications rejected, the number of qualifying employees for whom a holiday has been claimed and the amount claimed.

The only significant difference between the commitment that the Government have made and the amendment that we are debating is that the latter would require,

“an assessment of the demand to apply the regional holiday to different areas of the country”.

I am not completely clear about the meaning of these words and how what is suggested would operate. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, did not address the detail. The substantive point is that the Government do not see the need to report annually on the demand to apply the holiday to different areas of the country. We can assess that now and I do not expect the assessment to change. There is, of course, strong demand from excluded regions to enjoy the benefit of a holiday that they would like to have, but we have debated that already and the House has this afternoon formed a view on excluded regions. The position remains as we have debated it, so I am not sure how that part of the amendment would achieve anything.

The Government’s objective remains to target resources at those regions most in need. The Government do not expect the objective to change. By tabling this amendment again, the noble Lord has given me the opportunity to restate for the avoidance of doubt that we will come forward with a transparent and comprehensive report on an annual basis. With those reassurances, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, I am once again grateful to the Minister for his identification of the way in which the Government are seeking to meet the clear objectives of transparency and effectiveness with regard to the scheme. Of course, I understand that because the scheme has no particular budget there is an aspect of parliamentary control that is clearly not possible in the measurement of the budget. My noble friends support this amendment because we see the value of transparency with regard to the scheme, particularly a scheme that is partial in its impact. Of course I understand that the Government have sustained their position about the limited geographical range of the scheme, but there is bound to be greater demand for transparency in a scheme that does not apply to areas where there are none the less pockets of deprivation, as we sought to identify in the past. Clearly, they would have benefited from the scheme had that been the case.

I accept what the noble Lord has said about the process by which the Government will be transparent on the operation of the scheme. I want to make it clear to him and the Government that we will continue to take a close interest in this scheme. It may be a modest measure, but it is highly significant and, in certain aspects, groundbreaking in the way in which it has been framed. That is why we will hold the Government to account on the extent to which they reflect accurately the operation of the scheme. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 7 withdrawn.