2019 Loan Charge
Debate between Mark Prisk and Steve Baker(6Â years ago)
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Mr Baker
One of Parliament’s duties is to restrain the Executive and ensure that their powers are reasonable. We should look carefully at the subject that my right hon. Friend has just raised. It is important that HMRC treats people in a decent and civilised way, and certainly more powers ought not to be taken than are strictly necessary.
Mr Mark Prisk (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)
My hon. Friend is to be congratulated on securing a debate on this subject. One of the iniquities, in addition to the issue of retrospectivity, is that at least four of the constituents who have been to see me have said that they were told by their companies that unless they signed these new forms of contractual relationships, they would not continue to work for those companies. Given that, should not HMRC be pursuing the companies and not the individuals?
Mr Baker
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Toward the end of my remarks I will come on to the solutions that I propose, but I entirely agree with him that if any company insisted on people engaging in these arrangements it certainly should share the responsibility for what they did.