Finance Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 1st July 2020 Commons Chamber

People point out that they declared what they were doing on their self-assessment form. Even the tax code was okayed by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. They were told that this was a less burdensome way of doing things than starting their own plc. As soon as the first sniff of a discrepancy appeared, they paid the shortfall. The retrospective aspect is worrying; people are now being told that all these other things will be reopened. In the case of my constituent, HMRC mixed this up with a student loan from years ago, which had been was paid off. There are aggressive letters, maladministration, and, for this constituent, health issues. That is just one example from a three-figure number of examples that I could give.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the common characteristic of the people who have contacted many of us is that they are very hardworking? They have tried to play by the rules. They have possibly been sold a scheme that they did not fully understand, and may have been manipulated by unscrupulous advisers, and now they face threatening behaviour from HMRC. It is truly difficult for these people, many of whom work in IT in the Thames valley, and in creative industries. Does she agree that the Government need to show these people some understanding?

[Dr Huq]

My hon. Friend is completely right. HMRC needs to show some humanity in these cases. The scheme was obviously badly implemented, with inadequate impact assessment. The word “scandal” is frequently used and often misapplied, but in this case, all the elements needed are there. People have been pushed into bankruptcy; families have been fractured; people are facing financial ruin and losing their homes. As we have heard, there have been seven suicides. The all-party parliamentary loan charge group, which is very active—I am sure it is in everyone’s inbox all the time—has sent round a letter from the daughter of one of the people who sadly took their own life about the impact that has had on everyone involved.

The Morse review is a start, although the APPG feels that it could do better and go much further. All of us have seen these cases; my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) described the situation movingly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Taiwo Owatemi]

I have been contacted by many residents who are extremely worried about the changes to the furlough scheme and their potential impact on unemployment. One of my constituents, James, recently got in touch with me to say that the company that his partner works for has already announced that it will be letting almost 40 employees go. The reason the company gave, I am told, was that the Government have asked employers to share the load of the furlough scheme from August. As can be imagined, staff at the company have been left heartbroken and have said that they feel this is completely wrong and runs contrary to the much repeated idea that a furlough scheme was a job retention scheme. James has said to me that while he understands that companies must ensure that they can continue to operate on a sustainable financial footing, it seems very unethical of the company to make the decision to reduce its numbers two months before that would start to become a significant financial burden on it.

The Prime Minister has repeatedly said that companies should not use the scheme just to keep employees on their books, only to get rid of them later, but should use it as a scheme to retain jobs. This compounds my view that the furlough scheme masks the true extent of the crisis in our jobs market. Since the start of the crisis, the Government have been too slow to take these threats seriously. We have seen very little from the Government around preventing unemployment since their economic package was created. If we do not take action now, we could see even more people lose their jobs.

This crisis requires a regional response, so that places such as the west midlands are not left behind. The Government’s one-size-fits-all approach fails to understand how our economy works. My own city has seen a devastating impact, with mass redundancies coming at Coventry College. Last week, I spoke about the impact on the aviation industry, with job losses at Rolls-Royce Ansty and in the arts and small businesses such as Exhibit 3Sixty. We need to protect our industries in the west midlands. That is why we need decisive rapid action to boost the economy, to provide small and medium-sized firms with the support they need, and to give businesses the strongest incentive to start creating jobs again.

My office has already started this work. Working alongside Coventry City Council, we are getting ahead of the response. I will not sit idly by while people in my community lose their jobs and vital skills. I have been holding a series of meetings with employment and skills agencies, as well as with Coventry and Warwickshire chamber of commerce and other business groups, to discuss supporting businesses during this time and upskilling people so that they can secure jobs for the future and find new work now. As part of its employment and skills priority for Coventry, the city council has been working with partners to host a series of virtual jobs fairs, with thousands of views and impressions to give people a head start. But this effort cannot be left up to us. The Government must do everything in their power to create support systems for those who become unemployed as well as new opportunities. We need to see the Government working with employers, unions and local government, with a joint approach across government to maximise job creation and comprehensive support to tackle unemployment.

[Matt Rodda]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a role for private sector landlords in this, working with the Government and local authorities? I have been quite taken aback by the approach of a number of commercial landlords who put extreme pressure on tenants at this time, which I believe is quite wrong.

[Taiwo Owatemi]

I agree with my hon. Friend; that is completely wrong.

No business or individual should be left behind. Every livelihood deserves the chance to survive this crisis. Otherwise, who knows what impact it will cause? Where there are job losses, will the Government commit to retraining those workers, whether old or young, through a future jobs fund so that they can harness the jobs that will come out of the crisis? Those jobs should be part of a new, prosperous economy, and they should be green, well-paid and sustainable. We do not need a race to the bottom, the slashing of safety regulations or the austere measures that we have seen in the past 10 years. The Chancellor said that he would do “whatever it takes” and frankly that is the least that my constituents in Coventry North West deserve. We have seen 18 years of growth and millions of jobs lost in two short months. To restore dignity, to save jobs and create new ones and to stimulate this much-needed recovery, bold progressive action is required. Nothing less will do.