National Insurance Contributions (Termination Awards and Sporting Testimonials) Bill

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 10th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The liability only arises for testimonials of more than £100,000, but I understand his point. For example, I do not know how it would work if a committee were to receive £80,000 on the day of the sporting testimonial and then another £25,000 afterwards in charitable donations. I hope that the Minister will make plain which period the income from a sporting testimonial covers. If the income arises after the sporting testimonial, does it breach the £100,000 cap, and would the liability for class 1A contributions therefore arise, even though it did not occur on the day of the sporting testimonial?

There is also a difference between contractual and non-contractual sporting testimonials. The hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) made this incredibly clear in Committee and discussed in some detail the definition of “contractual”. The issue is not only the word “contractual”, but whether a sporting testimonial was expected. For example, if everybody who plays centre forward for a football club is given a sporting testimonial, does that mean that everybody should expect a sporting testimonial, or does it just happen that the last five people who played centre forward were amazing at scoring goals and therefore received a sporting testimonial? My concern is that people who did not expect a sporting testimonial will end up, through no fault of their own, in a situation where the Government consider it to be one that they expected to get.

My concern in both cases is the impact on HMRC, which will have a job of work to do in deciding whether the sporting testimonial income creates liability for class 1A contributions. Is it a contractual testimonial? Is it one that the sportsperson should have expected to receive? That will be a difficult set of cases for HMRC to deal with, to come to the correct decisions.

New clause 4 simply says:

“The Secretary of State must, within three years of this Act receiving Royal Assent, lay before Parliament a report on its Exchequer impact.”

Before a Treasury Bill comes before Parliament, explanatory notes and a TIIN—a tax information and impact note—are provided, which we all are able to access. A TIIN projects how much the Treasury expects to receive as a result of tax changes, whether it is a tax relief or an additional tax. I have pushed Ministers before on how we know whether the expected impact was actually received.

The information that I was given in Committee was not as strong as I hoped for. I understand that at an unspecified point in the future, the Treasury Committee will be given a report on the Exchequer impact of tax changes. I do not know who keeps track of when those reports are published or whether a report is provided to the Treasury Committee on all measures that have an Exchequer impact. However, I do know that the Members who serve on the Bill Committee—whether Opposition or Government Members—and who scrutinise the Bill, raise concerns about its progress and ask questions about the potential Exchequer impact do not get a copy of the report. Only the Treasury Committee gets a copy of the report and has the right to scrutinise it.

If the Government cannot accept new clause 4—it would be nice if they did, so that a report was laid before Parliament that we could all see—I ask that when reports are published and sent to the Treasury Committee, all Members who serve on the Bill Committee also receive a copy. It would not be a massive administrative burden on the Treasury to ensure that we were all emailed a copy; I am not even asking for a paper copy. It would mean that Parliament and the Government’s decisions were more transparent. It would also mean that the next time we were asked to take a decision on national insurance contributions or anything else, we could look back at whether the impact that the Exchequer projected was actually received.

I get that there are various reasons why we change taxation. We can change taxation to discourage behaviour that we do not want, to encourage behaviour that we do want, to raise revenue or, as the Government say they are doing in this case, to simplify things—although I have given a number of reasons why this is not the way to simplify national insurance contributions or termination payments. This House can only make sensible decisions about taxation if we understand how accurate the Treasury’s projections are. It would be much better if the Government committed to send us a copy of this report when it goes to the Treasury Committee.

I will not press new clause 4 to a Division, but I am happy to vote with the Opposition on any measures that they press. I hope that the Minister will say yes to the small request I have made, because it would not have a huge administrative impact or cost him anything.

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Robert Jenrick)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to the comments and questions posed by the hon. Members for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) and for Bootle (Peter Dowd). I shall not detain the House long, but I will try to respond to as many points as possible. I am surprised that the hon. Member for Bootle has raised those concerns and indicated that he intends to vote against this measure, given that he did not divide the House on Second Reading and did not divide the Committee on a single clause.

[Peter Dowd]

I indicated at the time that we would reserve our judgment and see whether the Government came up with sensible proposals. The fact of the matter is that, regrettably, they have yet again not come up with those suggestions, proposals, recommendations and explanations. That is why. Here we are giving the Government the benefit of the doubt, and we are being criticised for it.

[Robert Jenrick]

Let me respond to the amendments tabled by the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Aberdeen North. It is a bit like groundhog day, because we have been through these arguments before. I will first address new clauses 1 and 2, which seek to amend the legislation that deals with termination awards, and then new clause 5.

New clauses 1 and 2 seek to commit the Government to report to Parliament on the impact of the changes to termination awards legislation within one year of implementation. They both seek further information on the impact of this measure on individuals whose contracts have ended and on employers. New clause 1 also asks specifically about distributional analysis, while new clause 2 asks the Government to consider the impact on businesses using termination payments to fund a start-up—a matter that we also discussed in Committee.

First, the Government consider that producing such reports is unnecessary, because we have already considered these issues in detail as part of the policy development and extensive consultation process. As we have discussed on a number of occasions, this Bill has been known about for some time. It was published for the first time in 2015. It has been restated in Budgets. It has been consulted on. This is not a new measure; it is well known to individuals and stakeholders who might be affected and to the tax and professional community who will be involved in advising businesses. There is little more to be said on that.

[Kirsty Blackman]

As the Minister has said, we discussed this in Committee, as well as on Second Reading. As we have discussed it before and he knew this question was coming, can he tell us how many businesses use termination payments for their start-up and how many fewer will use it for their start-up as a result of these changes?

[Robert Jenrick]

As I said in answer to the hon. Lady in Committee, that is not information that HMRC collects. Studies are made by independent bodies, some of which I highlighted to her during the previous stage of the Bill. I could direct her to them, but I cannot vouch for the veracity of those studies, which are produced by independent bodies. Of course, there is anecdotal evidence of the number of start-ups created in the event of significant redundancies at particular businesses, but that is not something HMRC collects or would be able to do easily. With great respect to the hon. Lady and the point she is trying to make, I do not agree that that is something we should attempt to do in this case.

The point the hon. Lady raised in her closing remarks was about the review that HM Treasury does in the ordinary course of business. We do intend to do that, and we do so within three to five years of Royal Assent to a Bill. As I explained in Committee, the conclusions on the Bill will be communicated publicly to the Treasury Committee. I understand the point she has made on a number of occasions that we could at that point specifically notify certain Members of this House should they be in this House and remain interested. However, again with respect, I suggest it is perfectly reasonable that we send that to the Treasury Committee, which will publish it. It will be in the public domain, and if she or other right hon. and hon. Members are interested at that stage, they will be able to view it and take it from the Treasury Committee website.

[Kirsty Blackman]

Could the Minister please let us know whether that will be in three years’ time or five years’ time, or at what point in that two-year period should I be watching the Treasury Committee’s website?

[Robert Jenrick]

I cannot tell the hon. Lady that at the present time, and for good reason. We do not know at this moment when will be an appropriate time to review this particular tax. Clearly, it can take time to gather the correct evidential base, and that will vary from tax to tax. We will choose the correct moment when we have the greatest degree of evidence to make an informed decision, but it will be within the three-to-five year window.

The existing processes I have described allow time for the Government to consider an adequate amount of evidence, including administrative and taxpayer data. These do take time to collect. They often involve external research, stakeholder views and other relevant analysis. After one year, as is proposed in new clauses 1 and 2, is rarely the appropriate time to review a new tax. Accepting these new clauses at this stage would mean rushing into reviewing these polices prematurely, without proper consideration and without enough evidence to do so robustly, which is what I think all right hon. and hon. Members would wish us to do.

Secondly, the Government have already explicitly considered the impact on employers and individuals as part of this policy development and the consultation process I have already outlined. We decided on an approach that protected those losing their jobs—for example, by retaining the important £30,000 exemption. We have stressed on a number of occasions throughout the passage of the Bill that the Government certainly have no intention of changing that. Were this or a future Government to do so, it would require an affirmative statutory instrument, which could then be debated and voted on by the House. We have also chosen not to change employee national insurance contributions as well, which we could have done for even greater simplification. We chose not to do so to protect employees in a difficult period in their working lives.

At this point, I would add that this policy has been costed. That was certified by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, and the methodology for this assessment is described in the Budget policy costing document. The suggestion from the hon. Member for Bootle that this was not properly costed is not correct; it has been independently certified.

New clause 1 also requests that the Government conduct a distributional analysis. As I have set out on a number of occasions, the Government have already assessed the distributional impacts of this policy using the information that is available to us. We are confident that the termination awards affected by these changes will be disproportionately paid by higher and additional rate taxpayers. It will not be possible to make a further assessment until we have collected the administrative data on the impact of this policy, which we will do in due course, and it will of course inform the review we have already described in three to five years’ time.

New clause 2 asks that we consider the impact on start-ups. I have answered the question from the hon. Member for Aberdeen North: we do not hold this data. It is not an easy statistic to collect. It requires tracking the behaviour of an individual across time and between different employments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I am grateful to all the right hon. and hon. Members who participated throughout the passage of the Bill, particularly in Committee. I thank the Committee’s Chairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham) and the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh).

This is a small and narrowly drawn but none the less important Bill that continues the Government’s aim of aligning tax and national insurance contributions where it is right to do so. The Bill aligns the employer national insurance contribution treatment of termination awards and sporting testimonials with the current tax treatment. It also raises about £200 million a year for the public finances.

As I mentioned in previous debates, the Bill has been expected for some time. The measures were first announced at Budget 2015, consulted on thereafter and so have been widely expected and subjected to a great deal of scrutiny. The effect of the changes in the Bill will mean that a 13.8% class 1A employer national insurance charge will be applied to income derived from termination awards and sporting testimonials that are already subject to income tax.

I would like to reiterate my thanks to hon. Members who participated in the debates. I thank my superb officials at HM Treasury and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, whose patience and professionalism never ceases to impress me. I commend the Bill to the House.