National Insurance Contributions Bill

Richard Thomson Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 1st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister for setting out the reasoning behind the Government’s amendments in the other place. Although we support many of the measures in this Bill, we cannot ignore the fact that we are discussing the Government’s plans for specific relief from NICs just one month before they raise national insurance for workers and businesses across the board. That is the crucial context for the Lords amendments we are being asked to consider.

Five weeks from today, a typical full-time worker will see their annual tax bill rise by £274. That will be the direct result of the Government’s decision to raise NI. It is the worst possible tax rise, at the worst possible time. We argued it was wrong last September, when the Government pushed this tax rise through Parliament. Since then, energy bills have begun to soar, making our case even stronger. Now, as we stand alongside the Ukrainian people, we know that that conflict will impact people here, with further price rises for petrol, energy and food. The Conservatives must think again. The impact of their NI hike is getting worse and worse. The Chancellor should finally do the right thing and scrap April’s tax rise on businesses and working people.

As we said when this Bill was being debated in the Commons last year, we support the intention behind many of its measures. However, throughout its passage, we and our colleagues in the other place have raised important questions with Ministers about some of the approaches the Government have decided to take. With that in mind, I turn to Lords amendments 2 and 4, which were successful in the other place and which we will be supporting here today. Lords amendment 2 seeks to add one further condition to those that already exist in the Bill for freeports. When it was introduced, this Bill included the conditions under which employers in a freeport could benefit from a zero rate of secondary class 1 NICs. This amendment adds one further condition to freeport employers’ relief. It would make sure this relief is available only if the freeport maintains a public record of the beneficial ownership of businesses operating within it. We, alongside right hon. and hon. Members from across the House, have long argued for transparency over the ownership of UK assets. In recent days, that has come to a head, with the Government finally admitting and accepting the urgent importance of establishing a public register of the overseas owners of UK property. Yesterday, when the Business Secretary made a statement to the House on “Corporate Transparency and Economic Crime”, no one could deny the damage caused by the Government’s failing to prioritise transparency of the overseas ownership of UK interests. As my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) told the House yesterday, although we clearly support the Government’s introducing a register of overseas owners of UK property, we are clear that:

“The UK would have been in a much stronger position to act with speed and our national security would have been better protected if the register had already been up and running.”—[Official Report, 28 February 2022; Vol. 709, c. 736.]

As my hon. Friend went on to say yesterday, we hope lessons will be learned for the future. The Government have a chance today to prove that they have learned those lessons. Let us avoid their pressing ahead today without that transparency condition, only to return to the matter in a rush at a later date when the opportunity for greatest impact may already have been missed. That is why we will support Lords amendment 2, and I urge Government Ministers and hon. Members on all sides to do likewise.

I turn now to Lords amendment 4, which was also successful in the other place and which we will support today. The Government’s Bill introduces a zero rate of national insurance contributions for employers of armed forces veterans for the period of one year beginning with the earner’s first day of civilian employment after leaving the armed forces. We believe it is crucial to ensure that all veterans get the support they need as they seek civilian employment.

Lords amendment 4 enables the Treasury to change the period of support offered if it is found to support employment. We believe it is a simple measure, giving the Government flexibility to adjust the operation of the relief if doing so might improve veterans’ ability to find long-term employment.

As the Financial Secretary may know, when the Bill was debated in the Commons last year we raised questions about the time period for which the relief would be available. When I discussed this Bill with her predecessor, the right hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), I asked him to explain in greater detail why the Government had chosen a period of one year for veterans’ employers. In response, he said that one year was appropriate because,

“the goal is to support a very specific process of transition”.

When we pressed him further on the importance of helping to maintain long-term employment, he acknowledged:

“If it were the case that veterans still had a serious problem of finding secure and stable employment, of course that would be a matter that the Government would wish to reflect on and consider.”

He assured me and several of my hon. Friends that he would,

“continue to reflect on this policy”,

and that those at the Treasury,

“already have in place processes of evaluation and assessment.”––[Official Report, National Insurance Contributions Public Bill Committee, 22 June 2021; c. 18-20.]

I am sure the right hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer) will want to honour those commitments made by her predecessor.

Through Lords amendment 4, we seek simply to give the Government the power to change the period of relief, should their ongoing analysis conclude it is in the best interests of veterans to do so. On that basis, I urge the Financial Secretary and her colleagues to reconsider the Government’s position. I hope that Ministers and hon. Members on the Government Benches will see the value that Lords amendments 2 and 4 add to this Bill and that, even at this late stage, they might reconsider their position on them.

I end by urging Ministers to ensure that next time we are in this Chamber with national insurance on the Order Paper, it will be to agree to cancel the tax rise coming next month. The Chancellor has five weeks to do the right thing—five weeks to change his mind and avoid hitting working people and businesses with the worst possible tax rise at the worst possible time.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

I rise to support Lords amendments 2 and 4, but I will deal first with amendment 4.

As I said at earlier stages of this Bill, those who have experience of serving within the armed forces bring tremendous qualities to the workforce through both the skills they have learned while in uniform and their breadth of life experience. Despite our awareness of that and the best efforts of Governments and the third sector, for too many of our ex-servicemen who are leaving the services, the transition to civvy street is far more difficult than it often needs to be.

Having this exemption for national insurance contributions is therefore a very positive step as far as we are concerned, making it even more attractive to employers to hire those ex-service personnel and to bring their skills and experience into the workforce, helping to bring to fruition all the many economic and social benefits that can come from that. In that regard, we are attracted to Lords amendment 4 simply because it gives the Treasury that power to extend the eligibility period attached to the zero rate relief for armed forces personnel and veterans, should that be deemed desirable. That seems to us to be a perfectly reasonable addition to make to the Bill, giving the Treasury a degree of flexibility on how to implement the measure that would otherwise be lacking in the Bill as drafted.

On amendment 2, let me first place on record my satisfaction at the agreement that has eventually been reached by the Scottish Government and the UK Government over freeports, or green ports, of which two will now be established in Scotland, with the bidding process opening in spring this year and the first sites opening, hopefully, in spring 2023. I will go a little bit off piste here to say that that outcome was not always guaranteed, and at times, in at least some of the public discussions, there has been a bit more war-war than jaw-jaw, certainly on the part of individual Conservative politicians rather than between Ministers in Edinburgh and London. For example, the Scottish Business Minister, Ivan McKee, had to write six times to the UK Government to even try to get green port discussions under way in order to get them over the line. He said that the silence was deafening. That is a pretty damning account that rather sits at odds with the impression that we are often given from those on the Treasury Bench as to how they would like to work constructively with the Scottish Government.

The reason for holding out on the variation on the freeports option was quite simple. We felt very strongly that given the scale of the financial support that was on offer, it was vital to ensure that wider policy objectives such as environmental obligations, the commitment to net zero and fair play for those employed within freeport sites, were met. While it is up to the UK Government to decide how those objectives can be met in England, applicants for green port status in Scotland will be required to set out robust plans at the outset on how they plan to contribute to Scotland’s just transition to a net zero economy and how they will benefit the wider supply chain alongside embedding fair working practices such as at least paying the real living wage.

Freeports, it is fair to say, have had a somewhat mixed reception abroad, particularly as regards the relationship that they are perceived to have with criminality and tax evasion. While hardly the “Grand Theft Auto”-style dystopia that they have sometimes been portrayed as, the potential for criminality and non-compliance with taxation, employment rights, health and safety or environmental regulations and obligations is clear, as is the potential for broader economic displacement.

That brings me to the nub of amendment 2. In recent weeks, we have seen significantly increased demand from this House for scrutiny and visibility of financial transactions that take place in this country. We need to have that increased scrutiny over those who spend and invest in the UK, and also over where their money originates. It is very important when setting up freeports that we are able to answer the age-old question, “cui bono?” That is absolutely paramount. A requirement that the freeport deliverance body should be able to make reasonable efforts to verify who the beneficial owners of the business are and to ensure that that information is accessible not just to the relevant enforcement agencies but to the general public is the minimum amount of due diligence that we should expect in exchange for the status and the exemptions on offer.

I listened carefully to the Minister’s arguments about the beneficial register that will be in place and her view that as a third party under the local governance arrangements it would be inappropriate to release that information. Respectfully, I disagree with that. We all know how labyrinthine and byzantine corporate structures can be. Irrespective of any requirement in future legislation that may be coming into force, certainly on freeports, my party firmly believes that we should have transparency and accountability baked into the corporate structure and public reporting at the outset. On that basis, both Lords amendments have our support and we shall be voting accordingly.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

I spoke on Second Reading and at other stages before the Bill went to the Lords, but it is fair to say that I now stand in a very different environment. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last week, so many aspects of our economy, our international relations and our defence strategy have been cast in a new light.

In that spirit, I rise to support Lords amendment 2, which was introduced by my good friend and Richmond Park predecessor, Baroness Kramer. In the past week, we have had cause to look again not just at our defence spending and at the importance of our international relationships, but most importantly at how the UK— London in particular—has become a haven for Russian money, at what it has done to us as a nation and at how it has undermined our efforts to stand with the brave people of Ukraine.