National Insurance Contributions Bill

Lord Myners Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Myners]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to speak after the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria. I have a tendency at times to stray away from the core subject in hand, but that can be judged only in relative terms, so I hope that your Lordships will judge me to be focused. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, correctly said that this is not an excuse for a general discussion about the economy, although I am sure that the House would welcome such an opportunity in due course. My noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton has expressed the view that the Government’s position on NIC is one that the Labour Party will not oppose in substance although we will challenge it in detail, especially when the Bill is in Committee.

The key challenge for the economy is growth and addressing the deficit. There is no doubt that the deficit needs to be addressed but that must be set in context. In 2007-08 the deficit was 2 per cent of GDP; it was only the global banking crisis that forced it up with its impact on tax receipts and increased public expenditure through the fiscal adjustment process. We are clear that the deficit needs to be addressed, and the difference between the Government and the Opposition is a matter of quantum and pace in terms of deficit reduction.

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, challenged us to ask what would happen if the deficit had not been addressed, and pointed to the credit rating agencies and their attitude to Japan. I think that those agencies are somewhat in disrepute and I would not be terribly taken by their views. Simply, the deficit was well funded and continues to be well funded. We have a 14-year average debt maturity for gilts and were funding at the time of the general election the lowest long-term rate of interest for more than 40 years. The Minister used to tell the House about how interest rates had come down, which was a sign of the world’s financial markets endorsing the Government’s policies. He has been rather more silent of late as interest rates have gone up. The UK gilt-edge market has been the worst performing major fixed-income market in the world in the past eight months. We do not hear very much from the Minister on that. It is happening because markets are becoming increasingly worried about inflation and the prospect of the economy being pushed back into recession.

The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, said that the last quarter of 2010 saw negative GDP of 5 per cent. It was not 5 per cent but 0.5 per cent but the fact remains that we were alone among the world’s major economies in experiencing a negative figure. We have to watch how the UK economy develops compared with other economies that seem to be coming out of the global recession. The Government will not be forgiven if their own policies force us back into recession.

My questions on the Bill are matters of detail. The holiday refers to an anticipated participation by 400,000 employers defined as being outside the “excluded regions” in Clause 4(5) and falling within the definitions in Clauses 5 and 6. Can the Minister be a little more helpful by explaining how the estimate of 400,000 has been arrived at? Can he clarify whether the cost is on the basis that the 800,000 jobs would not have been created at all or are they significantly jobs that would have been created regardless of whether the measure was adopted? My feeling is that the £940 million may be the cost but it is an overestimation of the benefit of the policy that the Government are promoting as a counterbalance against the general impact of employment on the NIC charge.

The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, is right about it being a tax on jobs, but it is worth keeping in mind that the OBR estimates that the impact on jobs of the VAT increase is three times as great as the estimated impact of the increase in NIC. Although it looks to be specifically related to employment, other taxes have an even more adverse impact on employment activities.

Have the figures of £940 million, 400,000 employers and 800,000 employees been audited by the OBR? Can the Minister, either now or in writing after Second Reading, tell us whether there is any evidence that this is already having an impact on employment creation? The Bill is retrospective in its impact back to June 2010, so we should have eight months’ experience already. We should see an increase in employment creation in the non-excluded regions compared with the excluded regions. I would be interested to know whether we are talking about really new jobs being created—as opposed to those which, in the natural cycle of things, would have been created—and whether there is evidence that the policy is having the desired impact.

The excluded regions worry me. I am very pleased to see that Cornwall is eligible. Cornwall has very high unemployment and, as your Lordships know, I will always speak up in this House for my home county. However, I find it odd that Torbay and Harrogate should qualify for this aid, but Southampton, Bethnal Green and Corby do not. That is the problem with something as crude as the regional definitions that we employ here.

What would the cost have been had the excluded regions not been excluded? If the Government can calculate the figure on a regional basis—I am very sceptical about how much reliance we can place on these data—for job creation in a changing environment for a certain type of employer, a certain size of enterprise, newly created and in certain regions but not all regions of the economy, they should also be able to tell us what the additional cost would have been had the excluded regions also been eligible. Then we could look at the trade-offs. Would it have been justified not to have excluded regions? Would it have been better to have a lower tax advantage or a lower threshold for the number of employees? There are a number of ways in which one could have effectively divided up the benefit proposed under the legislation.

My noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton spoke very insightfully on the issues of regional exemptions. That said, whatever we can do for the regions is valuable, because the abolition of the RDAs is having a tragic impact on the regions. The LEPs are clearly not going to substitute for the RDAs. I welcome that support for regional economic activity.

Why are charities not included? There are 5,000 new charities established in this country every year—there may be even more with the big society. I would like the Minister to think carefully about whether newly established charities could also be eligible for the exemption. That would seem entirely consistent with the Government's position on a number of issues and would be most welcomed by those in the charitable sector, who find themselves under huge pressure as a result of changes in other taxation and general cutbacks on public expenditure.

Finally, Clause 10 deals with anti-avoidance. I welcome that. There has been much confusion between avoidance and evasion. Dr Cable and Mr Danny Alexander have often talked in terms of them being one and the same. Clearly, they are not. Anti-avoidance regulations are appropriate, and I support the Government’s intention to introduce general anti-avoidance requirements on the part of banks.

Setting things in proportion, whatever avoidance might be going on here by someone creating a business in one of the regions employing not more than 10 people, that is hardly undermining the integrity of public finance. Where avoidance is most pronounced, as the Minister will know, is in the financial sector. I ask him to confirm that the Government are as committed to pursuing avoidance strategies on the part of banks and financial institutions as they are on the part of small employers in the regions.

Let me put a very specific question to the Minister. In the past, banks and financial institutions have been very creative at avoiding NIC. One of the things they have done is to pay bonuses in gold bullion and other forms. Can the Minister confirm that the Government will be vigilant in ensuring that such strategies are not able to operate in future and that no business of which he has ever been part, employed by or worked for has ever involved itself in paying bonuses in gold bullion or non-transferable instruments?

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[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I think it is a wider definition, so if a charity in those areas was carrying on activities that went beyond trading, my understanding is that the charity would qualify. The noble Lord, Lord Barnett, makes a point that perhaps the latitude for charities is wider than I am painting it. However, the critical point here—perhaps I am using “trading” too loosely—is that we are talking about creating new employment. If a new charity is carrying on a business that creates employment, it will qualify.

[Lord Myners]

The Minister said that the Government estimate very few non-trading charities will be established during the holiday period. Can the Minister let us know how many charities the Government expect to be established during this period? They have clearly done the work; otherwise, he would not have given the answer that he did.

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[Lord Sassoon]

As I have tried to explain, the issue here is that we have to take broad areas of the country to make this workable. Otherwise, the scheme would be effectively unmanageable in the way that we want it. Some remarks have already been made about the cost of administering the scheme, and while of course there are boroughs in London that are very significantly deprived—and the noble Lord, Lord Myners, has raised questions about other parts of the country—we have had to work the design of the scheme around regional units. Therefore, as I have tried to explain and as my noble friend Lord Newby eloquently explained, the relatively benign employment conditions in London mean that we have had to take regions including London as a whole.

On the estimates of cost, I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Myners. I do not talk about the Office for Budget Responsibility as an auditing body, although he might like me to do so. That is not what it does. The OBR has independently reviewed all the key figures and looked at the £940 million, the 800,000 employees and the 400,000 employers. I assure the noble Lord that, whatever term he likes to use, the OBR has put that through its machine—

[Lord Myners]

I have to intervene at this point. As the Minister knows full well, it was the Chancellor of the Exchequer who used the term auditing to describe the work of the OBR in connection with public expenditure.

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, we are talking about the estimates here of the effect of the national insurance holiday. They have been put through the OBR’s estimable machinery in the normal way that the OBR does. As to the basis for the figure of 800,000 jobs, the detail of how that estimate was made and the data sources used were set out in the policy costings document published alongside the June Budget. I believe that the basis on which it was done was entirely transparent.

There was also a question whether the £940 million might be an overestimate of the benefit. It is a number that represents money that these new employers would otherwise have paid, so it genuinely reduces their labour costs and benefits them by that amount.

Lastly, I address the question about monitoring the holiday. My noble friend Lord Newby and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked about this, and the noble Lord, Lord Myners, may have touched on it. There will be monitoring and updates will be published after the end of the tax year on the operation of the scheme, including information at regional level. The Government envisage that the report will cover, from a regional and national perspective, the number of businesses applying and applications rejected, as well as the number of employees for whom a benefit is received and the amount claimed. This report will require information supplied by employers following the end of the tax year, and the first report will be published when the necessary information has been received, processed and checked to ensure that there is appropriate quality assurance. The Government aim to have these collated data and provisional findings published as soon as they become available, so it will be a comprehensive report on how the scheme is going.

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[Lord Myners]

Surely, the Minister will have data because applications have to be made and therefore will already have been made for an eight-month period. The Minister should be able to give us those data. I hope that, in writing to us after Second Reading, he will provide Members who have spoken in this debate with that information.

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, the scheme can be sensibly judged only when we get the full package of data on a national and regional basis that is broken down by the number of employees in the way that I have described. That will be published very transparently when there is a first basis of data on which to judge properly the impact of the scheme.

I want to address one last, important point from the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, about apprenticeships. Those have not been addressed otherwise in this debate but are of course relevant to the broader approach of the Government. His point is slightly detached from the main purpose of the Bill, but it gives me an opportunity to remind noble Lords that, in 2011-12, the Government will be providing £799 million for apprenticeships for 16 to 19 year-olds, which is an increase from the £780 million in 2010-11, and will fund 230,000 apprenticeship places for that age group. I trust that the noble Lord will recognise that this Government absolutely take on board the importance of apprenticeships. I could give the data if he wants, but I will not prolong the discussion now about the considerable amount of money that is also going into adult apprenticeships.

[Lord Sassoon]

Indeed, I think that in 2011-12 the sum for adult apprenticeships will be over £600 million. That accounts for something of the order of 430,000 apprenticeships, so the point is well made.

I am conscious of the time. I hope that I have been able to reassure noble Lords on the majority of the questions that they have raised on both parts of the Bill. I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord McKenzie of Luton and Lord Davies of Oldham, for making it completely clear that the Opposition do not oppose this Bill. I am also grateful for having had the opportunity to explain the Government’s position on the issues in the Bill. The Bill enables the reduction of taxation on labour nationally, with extra support in targeted areas, and I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

[Lord Myners]

There was one final point which I raised about anti-avoidance in the larger corporate sector, through mechanisms such as paying bonuses by gold bullion and by other non-distributable or non-marketable instruments. Does the Minister endorse my view that such strategies are morally unacceptable? Will the Government use all efforts to ensure that such avoidance by large financial institutions receives as much attention as is apparently being focused here on avoidance by small employers in the regions?