Business of the House

Debate between Mel Stride and Ellie Reeves

Thursday 18th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I thank my hon. Friend for asking a fantastic question. The young farmers in my constituency are a vibrant and important force. Farming sits right at the heart of our rural communities, in terms of employment, looking after the environment and so on, but farmers are generally getting older and the average age is increasing as the years go by. It is really important to get young blood into farming, and the young farmers clubs, including my hon. Friend’s, do a great job.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

Staff in libraries across Bromley are currently on indefinite strike because of draconian terms and conditions placed on them by the contractor, Greenwich Leisure Ltd, and Bromley Council has refused to take action. Our libraries are a fantastic community asset, but they are nothing without the dedicated staff who work there. Can we please have a debate in Government time about support and funding for our libraries?

[Mel Stride]

I will direct the hon. Lady to Housing, Communities and Local Government questions on Monday. I think that would be useful. Libraries are hugely important, and we have provided considerable funding for them. There is no doubt that the terrain on which libraries operate is changing dramatically, with the use of digital information as opposed to books and print media, but we as a Government are very keen to support them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mel Stride and Ellie Reeves

Tuesday 27th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I am delighted to inform the House that considerable progress has been made in reducing the level of tax evasion, avoidance and non-compliance in the corporate sector. We have been at the forefront of initiatives launched with the OECD—the base erosion and profit shifting initiative, the profit diversion tax we brought in in 2015—and, as a consequence of clamping down in this area, we have brought in £53 billion from big business since 2010.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

T7. Members have already raised the insufficient funding of local authorities by this Government. A recent campaign in Lewisham prevented local children’s and adolescents’ mental health services from being cut, but they are still facing a 5% loss in funding from national Government. When will the Government finally take this seriously and reverse the cuts to children’s mental health services?

Finance Bill

Debate between Mel Stride and Ellie Reeves

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ellie Reeves]

I will make some progress.

It seems curious that the Government want to make it a priority to enshrine it in statute that compensation for injury to feelings awards connected to the termination of employment should be taxed as earnings. This is yet another example of how the Government, rather than going after the big corporations that are avoiding tax, would penalise those who have been unlawfully discriminated against at work.

When we last debated the Bill in Committee on 11 October, it was suggested by Government Members that injury to feelings was some sort of new concept that Labour was trying to introduce to create a tax loophole. Yet injury to feelings is a well-established head of damage, enshrined in the Equality Act 2010 and in the various pieces of anti-discrimination legislation that preceded it, including the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. Guidance on the level of awards was given in the case of Vento some years ago, and it has just been upgraded. The highest award is £42,000 for the most serious acts of discrimination, which usually involves a course of conduct over many years, and the lowest award is £800—usually for a one-off comment. That is established legal principle.

Under these proposals, however, such awards would be taxed as a matter of routine when the £30,000 threshold is exceeded. Not only does that seem inherently unfair to victims of discrimination, but in practical terms it will lead to all sorts of litigation and drafting issues about whether an award is in connection with the termination or a previous act of discrimination unconnected to the termination. For example, a woman is subjected to sexual harassment at work over a sustained period. She subsequently tells her employer she is pregnant and is dismissed as a result. She pursues a claim for sexual harassment, unfair dismissal and maternity discrimination. She is awarded £30,000 for loss of earnings, which takes her up to the tax-free threshold. She is awarded another £10,000 for injury to feelings. Who determines what part of the award is for the harassment, which is unconnected to the termination of her employment and therefore not taxable, and what part is in relation to the pregnancy-related dismissal and therefore taxable?

Moreover, because personal injury claims will be exempt from tax but injury to feelings will not be, we are likely to see more employment tribunal claims pleading personal injury—for example, psychiatric damage—which will inevitably lead to complex medical evidence and longer hearings. With strains already on the employment tribunal system and on HMRC, that is surely not the route we should be going down. Or is this just the start of a slippery slope, with the Government ultimately wanting to tax all injury to feelings awards and all personal injury awards?

For those reasons, I urge the Government to accept our amendments and to go after the real tax avoiders, not hard-working individuals who have been treated unlawfully at work.

[Mel Stride]

Following our vigorous and constructive debate during the Committee of the whole House last month, I welcome the opportunity to reiterate the importance of the changes we are making to the taxation of termination payments today. In doing so, I thank the hon. Members for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) and for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) and acknowledge their contributions.

Before I respond to some of the detailed points raised, let me begin by briefly reiterating the objectives of the changes we are making. As I have outlined previously, the current rules on the taxation of termination payments can be unclear and complicated. Unfortunately, this complexity has led to a small minority of individuals and employers—particularly those with the most generous pay-offs—seeking to manipulate the rules to avoid paying the tax that is owed. They do so by characterising large pay-offs as termination payments rather than earnings, so that they qualify for the £30,000 tax exemption and an unlimited employee national insurance contributions exemption. As Members on both sides of the House have agreed, this situation is clearly unfair for the vast majority of employees, who are unable to manipulate their payments in this way. The purpose of this clause is to tighten and clarify the tax treatment of termination payments to make the rules fairer and prevent manipulation.

As we have heard, amendments 1 and 2 would remove the power to reduce the £30,000 tax exemption threshold for termination payments by regulations. As I have said several times in this House, the Government have no intention of reducing this tax-free amount, despite the best efforts of Labour Members to suggest otherwise. Let me assure the House again: any reduction in the threshold would be subject to a statutory instrument and the affirmative procedure, so the House would have to approve any such proposal. The House rejected this amendment in Committee of the whole House, and I urge it to do so again.

Amendment 3 would exempt from taxation all termination payments for injured feelings. As the House heard earlier this month, this amendment would present further opportunities for those seeking to manipulate the system by opening a large loophole for payments to be routinely reclassified on account of an injury to feelings, without any medical evidence, simply to pay no tax. This is hard to prove or disprove, and it would be very difficult for HMRC to regulate. In any case, payments for injured feelings will of course continue to qualify for the £30,000 tax exemption like any other normal termination payment. The House wisely rejected this amendment earlier this month, and I urge it to do so again.

The changes being made by clause 5 are a fair and proportionate way to close a loophole in the rules that has unfortunately been open to manipulation in the past. The Government have repeatedly shown that many of the concerns raised by Labour Members are unfounded —and, frankly, give the appearance, at least, of misconstruing an important tax avoidance measure as some kind of attack on those losing their jobs. This politicking is unworthy of the Opposition. I have heard no new arguments or evidence today to convince me of the need to reconsider this clause. I therefore urge the House to reject the amendment.

Question put, That the amendment be made.