Finance Bill

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 13th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Relevant documents: Oral evidence taken before the Treasury Committee on 29 November 2023, on the Autumn Statement 2023, HC 286; oral evidence taken before the Treasury Committee on the afternoon of 28 November 2023, on the Autumn Statement 2023, HC 286; and oral evidence taken before the Treasury Committee on the morning of 28 November 2023, on the Autumn Statement 2023, HC 286.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I must inform the House that the reasoned amendment in the name of Drew Hendry has been selected.

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[Nigel Huddleston]

As I outlined, I think the hon. Lady is hoping for measures to turn back the clock to when we were in the EU. We are not in the EU any more, and therefore the world is a different place. However, we are always keen to support and engage with the creative industries, and orchestras in particular. When I was at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, we raised those issues again and again—actually, with considerable success—to enable orchestras and tourers to get across Europe, often by doing individual deals with individual countries, which we sometimes have to do now that we are no longer in the European Union.

I will now outline measures to support our employment-boosting agenda. The path to achieve this is clear: we must remove both barriers to work and incentives not to work. Perhaps most of all, though, we must ensure that hard work is rewarded. That is why our spring Budget announcements were so important. Let us take the abolition of the lifetime allowance. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that that will retain 15,000 workers annually and the Bill completes that change by removing the lifetime allowance from the statute book completely.

I now turn to the measures to simplify our tax system. Complex and inefficient taxes are one of the biggest restrictions on businesses. They often come at a high cost in terms of both time and capital. It is the Government’s duty to deliver a modern, simpler tax system and the measures in the Bill will help to do just that. Making full expensing permanent is a huge simplification for larger firms, but we are going further by expanding the cash basis for over 4 million smaller growing traders. This will simplify the process to calculate their profits and pay income tax. We have also listened closely to feedback from businesses and, as a result of that consultation, some of the main restrictions on using the cash basis will be removed. The simpler cash basis will be the default method for calculating profit, and businesses will therefore start on the simpler regime as standard. We will also be taking forward other technical small measures. Those will include improving the data that His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs collects from its customers. These measures will result in a trusted modern tax administration system.

We must also build a tax system that is fair and works for everyone. We cannot understate the role of tax in supporting our public services. Taxes pay for them directly and, through attracting investment, indirectly. We must all fairly play our part. The Bill will make promoting tax avoidance a crime in circumstances where persons continue to promote a scheme after the receipt of a stop notice. It will also enable HMRC to act more quickly to tackle promoters of tax avoidance by introducing a new power for HMRC to bring disqualification action against the directors of companies involved in promoting tax avoidance. We will also reduce the scope for tax fraud in the construction industry by amending the construction industry scheme. The amendment will add VAT to the gross payment status test. This means two things: that compliance will now be checked as part of this process, and that HMRC powers to remove gross payment status will be enhanced.

Of course, it is only fair that we also guard against over-collection of tax. The Bill addresses a concern here, too. It will do so by enabling HMRC to reduce the off-payroll working PAYE liability of a deemed employer who is responsible for ensuring that PAYE is calculated and sent to HMRC correctly. This will apply where that engagement is incorrectly treated as self-employed for tax purposes.

It also remains important that we are in lockstep with our international partners during such unprecedented times. In spring, we legislated to implement OECD pillar two in the UK, building on the historic agreement built by the Prime Minister, to a two-pillar solution to the tax challenges of a globalised digital economy. In the Bill, we are making technical amendments to the main pillar two rules identified from stakeholder consultation. That is to ensure that the UK remains consistent with the latest internationally agreed guidance.

The Bill builds on the autumn statement that focused on the long-term growth of the UK economy and sound economic policy. What a contrast to Labour’s fantasy economics, including £28 billion per year of additional spending without any idea where that money will come from—although we all know at heart that it will be taxpayers or through more debt, which is, of course, just deferred taxation. In contrast, this Finance Bill backs British businesses, rewards hard work, and supports a modern and simpler tax system. In doing so, it delivers on the Government’s commitments to prioritise economic growth, encourage business investment, nurture innovation and simplify our tax system to combat tax avoidance. For those reasons, I commend the Bill to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the shadow Minister.

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[James Murray]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention on that point, and we will certainly raise questions on her behalf in Committee to try to get clarity from the Government. As she rightly points out, clarity and certainty have been distinctly lacking from this Government over a whole range of topics. We will certainly press them on that in Committee.

As I was saying in response to the hon. Member for Poole (Sir Robert Syms), we will not be opposing many of the individual measures in the Bill, including those on capital expensing, on research and development and on tax avoidance and evasion, but they all serve to remind us just how much of a merry-go-round this Government have become and just how much they lack a plan for the future. A plan for the future is what has been sorely missing from this Finance Bill and from the autumn statement, and it is clear that the Conservatives are now incapable of offering one. With no stability, no real certainty and no plan for growth that works, businesses are left without the partner in Government that they need, and without the growth that our economy needs, working people are left worse off, with the tax burden set to rise to a peacetime high.

If Labour wins the next general election, we will overhaul and accelerate the planning system, modernise our electricity grid, attract far greater private investment, scrap and replace business rates, set out a road map for business taxation and boost skills and training across the country. We will do all that to get the economy growing and to make working people better off. That is the change our country needs. Without change, we would have a fifth term of the Conservatives, and what on earth would that mean for Britain? What would the Conservatives speak of as their achievements in this Parliament? Twenty-five tax rises, the highest tax burden in eight decades, taxes up £1,200 per household and two decades of pay stagnation, as well as a fall in real household disposable incomes—the first time that has ever happened in a Parliament. That is the record of the Conservatives. That is what they cannot hide from and that is why it is time for change.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Treasury Committee.

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[Harriett Baldwin]

I can also attest to the fact that the hon. Lady is the second Labour Back Bencher in the Chamber. That brings the total to the two who are visible to me at this time on the Opposition Benches—[Interruption.] I think that the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Alistair Strathern) is also providing the shadow Parliamentary Private Secretary role. National insurance is indeed a terrible regressive tax as it stands and I wholeheartedly endorse any measures that reduce that burden and simplify things. The hon. Lady has pointed out that this is work in progress, but I think she should welcome the abolition of class 2 national insurance. That has simplified the national insurance system, and in the spring Budget we had the welcome simplification of the lifetime allowance charge. We also had a great simplification in childcare entitlement with the announcement of a much wider offer of free childcare. These simplifications have been broadly welcomed.

There are further welcome simplifications in this Finance Bill. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury was kind enough to write to me yesterday to summarise his principles for the simplification of the tax system. He wants tax rules that

“have a clear consistent rationale”.

He wants it to be

“easy for taxpayers to get their tax right”.

He wants taxpayers to be able to understand what they need to do “at key life cycle points”, and he wants a tax policy that

“does not…distort the decisions of taxpayers and result in poorly informed choices.”

In summary, the Government want

“the tax system to be simpler, fair and to support growth.”

The Financial Secretary’s letter, which we will be publishing on the Treasury Committee website this afternoon, also outlines further simplifications, which were in the remarks he made earlier. They include expanding the cash basis for small businesses, improving the design of Making Tax Digital, simplifying research and development tax credits, which we welcome, and simplifying capital allowances and making them more permanent. I will draw to the House’s attention to other measures for individuals that he did not highlight. There is an increase in

“the threshold for individuals with income taxed through Pay As You Earn to file a Self Assessment return to £150,000”.

That is important because more and more people would otherwise be caught by the freezing of the thresholds. From April 2024, that threshold will be abolished altogether. There are also simplifications for individual savings accounts in this Finance Bill, as well as measures to simplify customs processes. I think the Financial Secretary’s heart is in the right place on simplification, and there is no question but that R&D tax credits were being abused.

I draw the Financial Secretary’s attention to future opportunities for simplification while welcoming the fact that venture capital tax relief is being extended to 2035, as the Treasury Committee called for in our report. I would love to see the Financial Secretary focus on the unintended disincentives to taking on additional work and additional hours that exist throughout the tax system, at all sorts of income points. We have made huge strides on simplifying it for people on universal credit, making every extra hour of work pay, but once people get into the tax system, there are cliff edges and high marginal tax rates that deter them from working more. I will highlight two in particular.

First, the Treasury Committee is currently holding an inquiry on “Sexism in the City,” and we have had evidence on how we could improve some of those marginal tax rates. The child benefit taper was introduced 10 years ago with my wholehearted support. It was the right thing to do in 2013, but it is now time to look again at how it interacts with the free childcare offer. We should consider the opportunity for simplifying the tax system by getting rid of the taper altogether, as it is a terrible deterrent to the families who get caught.

A person with a lot of children, earning between £50,000 and £60,000, can have a marginal tax rate of over 100%. It has become far too complex, and it is deterring many women from taking on more work. With the childcare offer we now have, it is time to look again.

I also want to throw the evidence from our “Sexism in the City” inquiry into the mix. The City has the highest pay and, indeed, the highest pay gap in the country. Some of the best paid careers for women are in financial services, but we hear time and again that, because of the tax-free childcare cut-off at £100,000, some women are choosing to work less than a full week. The freezing of the thresholds is having side effects. As the Financial Secretary thinks ahead to next year’s fiscal events, I urge him to consider those two potential simplifications.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.