Oral Answers to Questions
Rupa Huq Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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John Glen
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. I can assure him that this Government are fully committed to examining all those matters through the review process and complying with all requests for information in order to get to the bottom of this matter.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)
The Government announced at Budget 2021 that the self-employment income support scheme, or SEISS, will continue until September, with the fourth and then the final fifth grant. This provides certainty to business as the economy reopens, and it means that the SEISS will continue to be one of the most generous schemes for the self-employed in the world, and one of the few where support is committed until September.
Dr Huq
Is it not the case that under this Chancellor the Tories have gone from being seen as freelancer-friendly to the party of sleaze with their selective texts and promises of favours for their pals? If not, can they fix— their expression—the situation for up to 3 million people who have been excluded from all the grants the Minister mentioned, and from universal credit, and have been forced into bankruptcy, debt and worse, with 19 self-employed suicides in the past year? What are they doing about it?
Jesse Norman
The hon. Lady will know that the SEISS is one of the most generous schemes of its kind. The range of overall measures that the Government have taken is one of the most comprehensive of its kind in the world. I think she also knows that I personally and my officials have leant in as hard as we can to understand and to work with those groups to see whether we could extend the schemes. It has not been possible, because of features of the design of the tax system, but we have absolutely spent every effort possible to try to make it so.
Areas with Additional Public Health Restrictions: Economic Support
Rupa Huq Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Steve Barclay
I am happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance about levelling up. It is at the core of the Government’s mission. It is a key priority of the Prime Minister and consequentially of all Ministers. We are actively working in the Treasury to accelerate under Project Speed our infrastructure investment to ensure that it is better targeted in terms of place as well as scheme.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
London, which is now on a watch list, is not only our financial centre but our cultural capital. [Interruption.] I believe so. It is the nation’s beating heart. Despite the £1.57 billion arts rescue package, freelancers and the self-employed in the sector in my constituency have not seen a penny since March. Established venues such as The Questors in Ealing face a record loss this year because the panto is off—oh yes it is! Will the Chief Secretary not be a villain and sort this out now?
Steve Barclay
I shall resist pursuing the panto theme, although I am not sure too many villains have allocated £1.57 billion to the industry in addition to the other package of support that the Chancellor has announced. The hon. Lady speaks of a real concern, which we are acutely aware of. The House has debated at length the issue of that subset of the self-employed who were beyond the date of the initial package and I do not think we need to rehearse that argument, but I recognise that it is an issue of ongoing concern. By international standards, the self-employed income support package that we have put in place is extremely generous, and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor extended it further in the winter plan.
Finance Bill
Rupa Huq ExcerptsWednesday 1st July 2020
(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
I rise to echo some of the points that the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) opposite made about new clause 33. Although it is not being pressed to a vote today, I hope that the Government will bow to the inevitable before long and will heed our calls. A few of us on the Opposition Benches will be talking about that.
I echo the disappointment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), with whom I co-chair the all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption, that they could not be here. We have had the rug pulled from under our feet with the hybrid Parliament, but let us not get into that; that is another debate for another day.
If we are talking build, build, build, the new clause would help towards rebuilding our economy post-coronavirus and rejuvenating our high streets, which have long felt clobbered by online competitors even before all this crisis. The new clause would do that by creating tax transparency for multinational giants, responsible investment and the closure of loopholes that enable financial flows that may not quite be illegal, but many would call pretty immoral.
The principle of country-by-country reporting, whereby multinational monster companies file public reports on their dealings country by country and then pay their dues, getting rid of the secrecy around their affairs and ensuring that tax is paid at the right time and in the right place—where the profits were made—has already been adopted by the OECD as an ambition. If that idea brings on a sense of déjà vu, it was passed by this House back in 2016 as the “show me the money” amendment tabled by Caroline Flint.
The issue is about fundamental fairness. When considering what the state of our public finances will be post-pandemic, we should be careful not to burden ordinary taxpayers with the whole tab, particularly when the tech giants have enjoyed state bail-outs. We have heard about high street decline, and the fact that the measure would rake in billions means it is needed now more than ever.
It cannot be one rule for hard-working UK businesses that play by the rules and pay into our Exchequer, and another for multinationals that can pretty much pick and choose what they do and pay minimal tax by shifting—sorry, “reallocating”— profits around the globe to low-tax dominions, where they might effectively just have a PO box to demonstrate a presence, all to save themselves cash that could be spent on our public services.
New clause 33 would mean that companies would have to publish how many employees they have, how much profit they make and their assets in each dominion. How is it, for example, that we have Amazon employees in warehouses here—some of them are our constituents—but its UK subsidiaries paid just £5 million of tax in the UK last year? We know that Amazon makes billions and billions. My small businesses in Acton, Ealing and Chiswick do not have the option of routing things through the Cayman Islands under the practice of tax haven abuse.
Since 2016, sadly there seems to have been a kind of stalemate. The principle is well-established and agreed, even back to David Cameron’s crusade for anti-corruption at the G8 in 2013, but there has been complete timidity from Government to act. A series of replies to written questions discuss how multilateral action is needed. The Government are basically saying, “I will move if you do”, but what good is having something on the statute book if it is not enacted? People will remember the Marcus Rashford affair the other day and they will see another U-turn here. I am hoping the Government can prove them wrong.
The new clause would make the principle a reality in relation to the digital services tax applying to the Facebooks, Googles and Amazons of this world. It is wrong that pound-for-pound, relative to what they make, they pay less tax than any of our constituents or we do. No market-sensitive data is included in the reporting format, so tech giants have nothing to fear.
The world has moved on from 2016, which was two Parliaments or three elections ago, although elections take place every other year now—I have had three in my short time here. Although the coronavirus rescue packages were entirely the right thing to do, it looks at the moment like the bill is going to have be footed by our children’s children’s children, who will still be paying it off. If we are serious about levelling up, this new clause would provide a level playing field for honest British businesses with the multinationals that can bypass proper procedures with their tentacles spreading everywhere around the world.
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Lady has said that the Government are being timid. Does she accept that it is not timid to introduce a digital services tax in the teeth of opposition from our largest trading partner, the United States? Much as I support new clause 33 in principle, the digital services tax is a very bold move.
Dr Huq
The hon. Gentleman is on the all-party parliamentary group and I know that he secretly agrees. Perhaps he is not saying so because his Whips are listening. The EU is our biggest trading partner. For many years before I came here, I used to teach and would sometimes say, “Could do better.” Yes, we support the measure, but we could do better, and this is a glaring example of an issue that is in need of urgent rectification.
The covid-19 crisis necessitating Government help for industry has, I hope, reversed the trend towards laissez-faire economics. It has been remarked by many people that we are missing a trick. We could bring some of these unscrupulous companies—we can call them companies with clever accountants, if Members prefer—to heel. It seems wrong that the Bank of England has made £1 billion of loans available to the German chemicals giant BASF, which has transferred profits to Malta, the Netherlands and Switzerland in order to avoid tax. There are countless other examples, but because these things are shrouded in secrecy, that is the example I am able to give. The easiest way to do it is by enacting what is already agreed, and we do that via the digital services tax, which the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) hails. These companies could be given time to make adjustments, and the very fact of transparency, rather than overly punitive measures at the start, could shame them into action and make them see sense.
We face a double whammy of the covid financial crisis and uncertainty outside the EU. The Chancellor said, “Whatever it takes”. Those headquartered in the UK already submit all this information to HMRC and to other relevant tax authorities. All we are asking is that we can all see it and that there is full and frank disclosure—including for investors and other stakeholders, who increasingly want to know these things—and then we can see where each company has its economic bulk or footprint. Making public what already exists would be low cost and straightforward. I see no downsides to this. The only people who oppose the proposal are those who usually abuse the rules. I understand that the tax havens of Jersey and Luxembourg are not too keen on it.
We keep being told that, post-virus, things cannot go on as before and, “We shouldn’t waste a good crisis, should we?” Ensuring that very large companies publicly reveal revenue and tax information could be something on which we lead the world, and we can still apply pressure on the OECD and G20—the two are not mutually exclusive. We cannot wait forever for action from the EU, because we are no longer a member of that organisation. Time and again, we were told by the leavers that we could be an independent nation and we were reminded of the sovereignty of Parliament. This proposal has wide cross-party support.
Sir Edward Davey
Does the hon. Lady not think it would be right for the Minister to say from the Dispatch Box that the UK Government will work closely with the European Union as it develops its digital services tax, and should not the Opposition parties be calling on the Government to make it very clear that European co-operation on this issue is vital?
Dr Huq
Yes, I think we should be working closely with the EU, but we can even beat them to it. Already on the EU Council there are countries such as France—which was called “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” on “The Simpsons”—that have agreed to it. This could be a bit of a trick for our Government if they pipped them to the post—I think we abstained when it last came up in the European Council. Yes, I completely agree that we should be in harmony with those countries, but this is an opportunity to beat them. By the way, not that I endorse “The Simpsons”, obviously—I do not want to cause a scandal—but, for those who are insistent, this presents opportunities. We have now left, after all.
The measure has cross-party support, and Oxfam, Christian Aid, CAFOD, the Churches and a list of development charities as long as your arm are all for it. They are spurred on by the fact that, as has been said, developing countries lose three times as much as they gain from development aid due to tax avoidance.
Regaining the respect of the aid sector, after the cruel surprise of the DFID merger was sprung on it the other day; delivering progressive taxation to ensure that corporations pay their fair share; rebalancing towards ordinary people; levelling up, so that our high street traders are not undercut by online giants with lax morals; levelling the playing field with multinationals, which is good for British business; bringing in billions and leading the way to be genuinely world-beating, which sadly the track and trace app was not; and beating the EU to it, when we have got Brexit done, and reinforcing the role of our sovereign Parliament—what is not to like?
The Nobel prize-winning economist Professor Joseph Stiglitz has remarked:
“It is time for countries to take both unilateral and multilateral actions to tax multinationals.”
Let the UK not drag its feet any more, but be a leader. It was David Cameron who said that sunlight was “the best disinfectant”, and the Conservative West Midlands Metro Mayor said when he was managing director of John Lewis:
“If you think of two companies making the same profit, one of them pays corporation tax at the UK rate, one does not because it claims to be headquartered somewhere else—that is not fair.”
Anyway, that is enough Conservative quotes in a Rupa speech—this is quite unusual for me. The Government should now set a date.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)
May I say how much I am enjoying the thoroughly Conservative nature of much of what the hon. Lady is saying?
Dr Huq
I think that is the point. The Minister should recognise that this has cross-party support. I started by praising the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield; I am ending with the Metro Mayor, the John Lewis man. These are all reasons why the Minister should adopt this measure forthwith. It is time to act. The time is now.
Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)
I just want to get that image of “The Simpsons” out of my head.
As a new MP, I was very grateful for the opportunity to sit on the Finance Public Bill Committee. It was a fascinating experience, during which I learned a great deal, including how the progress of a Public Bill Committee can be compared so poetically to the stages of “The Pilgrim’s Progress”.
I would like to speak briefly about the amendments tabled to part 2 of the Bill, namely new clauses 5 and 33, and amendments 18 and 19, all of which pertain to the new digital services tax. I very much welcome the introduction of the new tax on some of the world’s largest digital service companies. Economies evolve, and it is right that from time to time we act to address imbalances and unfairnesses that arise as a result of that evolution. Over the last few years, and particularly the last few months, we have become more and more reliant on social media companies and online marketplaces. Many of us now use these services every day of our lives, sometimes against our own better judgment. I have no interest in condemning the success of these companies. The reason why they have been so successful is that they have harnessed technology to provide something that consumers want. Surely that is the aim of every business in a free market economy where there is healthy competition.
However, multinational companies have grown rapidly in recent years and tax systems around the world have not caught up. As has been said, many digital service companies now enjoy unfair advantages when it comes to competing with traditional, offline businesses. They usually face lower property costs and business rates, and their multinational nature means that they can move profits around the world to reduce the burden of taxation. That is unjust. This new tax seeks to address this unfairness.
The introduction of the digital services tax is especially timely as we emerge from the coronavirus pandemic, during which offline businesses have been even more disadvantaged and many consumers have made the switch—perhaps permanently—to online shopping. I note that the digital services tax generally has cross-party support, as it did in Committee, with Members on both sides of the House welcoming this new measure to address unfairness in our tax system and generate revenues for the Exchequer, which will, of course, be used to strengthen our public services. The amendments therefore do not aim to alter the tax in itself and how it is applied or collected. Rather, they seek to force through a reporting regime that I believe could be counterproductive or futile.
New clause 5 would require the Government to make an assessment of tax revenues following the introduction of the DST and lay it before the House within six months of Royal Assent. Similarly, amendments 18 and 19 seek to press the Government to report on the DST within 12 months and annually thereafter. The amendments do not take into account the fact that there will be little data of any value to report within that short timeframe. Clause 51 states:
“Digital services tax in respect of an accounting period is due and payable on the day following the end of 9 months from the end of the accounting period.”
This means that many companies that become liable for DST following the passage of the Bill may have a significant proportion of their financial year remaining, and then another nine months following that, before DST contributions become payable.
Jesse Norman
If my right hon. Friend wants to raise some specific questions, I would be delighted to respond to them. There is a slight tension in his argument, because it contains the following two claims: first, that these international organisations are shape-shifting amoebas that constantly mutate to avoid tax, and secondly, that that shape-shifting and amoebic quality will stop when it comes to thinking about how to react to a unilateral tax transparency initiative.
Jesse Norman
I am sorry, but I have been really generous in giving way. I have to allow the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) time to speak, and I have an awful lot of material remaining, including on new clauses and amendments and contributions made by colleagues. I do not know how many minutes she wants, but perhaps she could give me a bit more time.
Jesse Norman
We know that the incentive exists for all the reasons why we get voluntary compliance in a whole variety of areas—that is to say, groups with particular concerns, press organisations and companies. We know that there has been a revolution in corporate social responsibility, although it has not in many ways been an adequate revolution, because it does not extend in some respects to paying tax, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) highlighted. There is a role that Government can play, in terms of improving the norms and setting a bar. This is a reasonable, staged approach.
It is important to have a level playing field for the reasons that I have described, and that applies to tax transparency as it does elsewhere. If a multinational group exceeding the country-by-country reporting threshold operates in the UK, HMRC will, in the vast majority of cases, already receive the report and is already using it for risk assessment purposes. Given that, we do not believe that it is appropriate to introduce these new requirements at this stage, but I understand the principles set out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield and the right hon. Member for Barking, and the debate has shown that those are widely shared. The argument we are having is over the nature of the approach and the implementation of a broad set of principles with which Members across the House generally concur.
I will turn to the comments made by Members in the debate. The hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South has been very generous with her time, and I have covered most of her remarks. The debate rightly touched on the issue of business rates. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) will know that we are publishing a business rates review, which will specifically include online forms of taxation and invite public discussion on those. That is another part of the same process of trying to engage more widely and not just recruit information and knowledge but set expectations and norms about the way in which firms should be paying tax.
The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) talked about sunlight being the best disinfectant. She is right, but she was quoting Louis Brandeis from 1914, who was dealing with forms of corporate thuggery that make what we see today modest by comparison.
The hon. Member for Wirral South talked about the distinction between justice in principle and justice in fact. Of course, she is absolutely right. There is a view at the moment of the nature of the corporation, and it is very widespread—more in America than in this country even—that companies are run in the exclusive interest of their shareholders. That is not true in the UK. That is not, as a matter of legal fact, true in this country. The shareholders are entitled to the residual proceeds but companies are run—it is in the Companies Act 2006—in the interest of their members.
Finally, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made a very good point. I think I am right in saying that “nation of shopkeepers” was coined by Adam Smith—but then I would say that, wouldn’t I?
Stephen Hammond
I hope that my hon. Friend heard my earlier remarks on that point, so I will not repeat them.
I would be grateful to hear the Minister’s responses to the points that I have made and look forward to hearing them later.
Dr Huq
I think it was some time before Brexit, when we had that previous Speaker with his comedy antics, that it used to be said that we are gripped by an age of apathy in politics. Well, I have to say that this debate has engendered quite the opposite in my inbox, which has been flooded—if not quite on a Dominic Cummings scale—by dozens of requests from constituents asking me to speak in this debate, aided and abetted by the digital function that we debated earlier today.
Yesterday, like other right hon. and hon. Members, I was pleased to participate in the virtual “The Time Is Now” lobby. I know that this was the subject of the previous debate, but I promised my constituents that I would lobby vigorously for the adoption of a green new deal. Seeing as how everyone has been channelling their inner Roosevelt, it seems appropriate to put that on the record. We need a greening of our economy locally and nationally.
I want mainly to address an issue that has already come up time and again—IR35 and the loan charge—and perhaps some other little bits about job creation and regional impacts.
I am sure I am not the only one who has heard harrowing stories from constituents. There are people in tears at my weekly advice surgery—and I represent Ealing Central and Acton, a prosperous West London suburban seat. The two schemes are markedly different—we should not muddy the waters too much—but they have features in common. The undercurrent of today’s debate has been how we rebuild our economy after the pandemic —this health crisis that turned into an economic crisis.
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.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend and neighbour agree that the reason why people are driven to suicide, and why a high proportion of those affected are so stressed about the loan charge, as has been mentioned, is that there is no right of appeal to a tax tribunal, or right to negotiate, as there is with all normal forms of tax business with HMRC?
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
The hon. Lady talked about the Morse review. We called for a review before the present Prime Minister was brought in; he agreed to it. The Morse review does not completely cover everything. I have certainly said to my constituents, as I suspect most of us have, that the Government were bound to implement its findings, even if we think the findings could have gone further—but the Government have not done that. That shows a lot of bad faith on their part.
Dr Huq
I completely concur with the right hon. Gentleman. It is very disappointing that even the crumbs of the Morse review are not being fully implemented in a transparent and fair way. Again, we have heard so much about these reviews. There are 200 recommendations on all the race relations stuff that have never been implemented. Another review is not what we need now; we need action.
My hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) described some of the people in IT who have come to see him. Those affected are not actually all in IT or accountants. Some of those who have come to me are from the public sector, including Eugene Nicholson in the NHS and Abigail Watts. I have had a supply teacher and a social worker. Some people are terrified and do not want their cases raised because of repercussions. As has already been said, the real culprits are the promoters of the schemes—individuals who are still practising today. They duped our constituents, who are now facing a nightmare of private debt collection and all sorts of things.
I will briefly turn to IR35, where there is some overlap, because it has caused enormous pain and strain. People got into these schemes innocently—in this case, their employers told them to do it. Many are individuals on low incomes who do not have deep pockets. The assumption is that they are all tax dodgers or whatever. Catherine Qian said that she was a one-woman band. These are micro-businesses. It is not like the discussion earlier where we were talking about going after multinationals. She has no employment rights. She has an accusation of being a hidden employee, but she gets no sick pay, stability or pension. Needless to say, she is not eligible for furlough. The Conservative manifesto at the election we recently fought said that there would be a review of self-employment, so I ask the Minister directly: when will that see the light of day? Will it be another one of these reviews that just sits on a dusty shelf?
How do we solve all of this? At the very least, HMRC should give those who fell prey to the loan charge more time and favourable conditions to reach an amicable solution. It has been said that no one will lose their home, and that is good, but HMRC must accept its share of responsibility.
Ruth Cadbury
My hon. Friend is right that HMRC has said it will not be taking people’s homes, but is she aware, as I am, that bailiffs on behalf of HMRC are locking people out of their own homes and refusing to let them back in until they make payment?
Dr Huq
My hon. Friend is so much more knowledgeable than me. Lots of my constituents cannot afford to buy their own home and are in rented accommodation, so that does not even apply to them. They are in beds in sheds—maybe I should not dob them in, but that is a phenomenon in the London Borough of Ealing.
Again, HMRC must accept responsibility for not communicating regularly with people. It could have acted sooner to avoid this sizeable group of people who went into these remuneration schemes having to pay back sometimes hundreds of thousands of pounds at a time. IR35 is being rolled out now, so the deferral is obviously welcome, because these things can be fixed in real time, as long as the deferral is not just pushing punitive measures further away. The Government need to urgently commit to a full review of tax reliefs.
While the debate is about job creation, I want to flag, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree pointed out, that the global pandemic we are in seems to be a bit of a cover for certain companies to behave badly. British Airways and Virgin spring to mind as using the coronavirus job retention scheme—the clue is in the name—to do the very opposite. Having accepted furlough funds from the public purse, they are now using coronavirus as a cover for restructuring plans—plans they were always itching to execute—while they believe the eyes of the world are diverted elsewhere. I say to the Minister that we need a sector-specific deal for aviation.
The situation is the same for the creative, cultural and arts sector. I represent many constituents who work in it. Not for nothing was Ealing long-called a BBC borough. The Questors theatre—the jewel in our crown—is the biggest amateur dramatic venue in the country and it has written to me. It is about to go under. Its rateable value is too high to get any of the reliefs. That is another plea to the Minister.
We were told that, when we left the EU, we would be world-beating on employment rights, and that our rights could exceed those of the bloc after Brexit, but now, with IR35, we are heading for zero employment rights. The Government always said that this would not be a race to the bottom, so they need to put their money where their mouth is. There is nothing like a global pandemic to concentrate the mind. We have heard slogans such as, “We’re all in this together”. To stop all these Government utterances from being just hollow words, we need action. Snappy slogans are not enough.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
It is true that we find ourselves in a very serious situation. The number of workers on UK payrolls was down by more than 600,000 between March and May. Of course, the Government are attempting to redress the situation with the Business and Planning Bill and the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill. We also hope that we can end lockdown as soon as possible. Certainly, the Prime Minister is talking the talk in terms of build, build, build. That is all very good. We have infrastructure needs; let us meet them. There are no massive spending projects. The problem with them is that they are often hugely bogged down in cost overruns.
I want to say a bit about tax simplification. That is the genesis of this whole debate on IR35 and the loan charge. There is also our hugely ineffective, inefficient and long tax code—longer than India’s—and that is after 10 years of Conservative Government. I think that there is a new wind breathing through No.10, and I hope that we are going to be bold about tax reform. Are there any taxes that we can abolish completely or replace with simpler alternatives? We have created this massive tax avoidance industry, which has sucked many people with quite moderate means into its claws. Let me cite as one example, inheritance tax at 40%. We have to understand how people act. At a rate of 40%, most people are willing to make a significant investment to reduce the effectiveness of that rate. I am not condoning that behaviour, but if someone were left a million pounds and if the state said that it would take £400,000, they might begin to think that it is worth spending £40,000 or £50,000 on tax advice as a way of lessening their payment of tax. All sorts of complicated trusts and avoidance schemes are available to those who recognise that they can avoid paying tax. The result is less money for the Treasury to spend on the things that we need.
On this debate about the loan charge, it is natural that politicians should want to close down loopholes, but often, in closing down loopholes, we are affecting people of quite modest means. It is true that as a level of complexity involves means, those loopholes are usually available to those who have the resources to investigate them, but not necessarily. An entire industry has been created around how to lessen our tax burden, inheritance or otherwise, and I think that the Government are, in a way, responsible for this kind of behaviour. The people who have taken advantage of these tax loopholes, often of modest means, are simply reacting to our hugely complex tax codes. Taxes need simplifying and they need lowering. I make that point because I hope the Minister will say something in his summing up about this. I hope that he tells us that the Government have an agenda, otherwise we will go on having these debates over and over again. Every time a new loophole is discovered, people will take advantage of it, often with the wrong sort of advice. Then the Government have to close the loophole, creating injustice, which we have heard all about in this debate.
Economic Outlook and Furlough Scheme Changes
Rupa Huq Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Jesse Norman
I can of course give my hon. Friend that assurance. I suspect that there is not a Member of this House who, if they look down the lists, will not see the positive benefits of the CJRS and the self-employment income support scheme in support of employed people on furlough and self-employed people in their constituencies. That is a tremendous thing that we can all be proud of.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
As a Labour member of the class of 2015, may I echo the remarks made about Jo Cox? She is much missed, and was murdered in cold blood while doing an advice surgery, which we all do every week in normal times.
I must say that I am disappointed by the Minister’s response. I wrote to the Chancellor on 24 April identifying a number of holes in his safety net, including brand new start-ups, people on dividend pay and the forgotten freelancers in the arts. I have had a make-up artist and a BBC contractor write to me in the last couple of days. Initially, he was thought eligible for furlough pay, but now, as he is not an employee per se, he cannot have it, and he has too many savings to get universal credit. I had no reply—not a sausage. Does the Minister not agree with the OECD’s analysis that, with these overly ungenerous levels of social security support, he is just storing up productivity problems and record unemployment for further ahead?
Jesse Norman
I am surprised that the hon. Lady should say that. As I recall, she and I have had two telephone conversations with colleagues in which we have discussed in detail the strengths and weaknesses and the potential to improve both the self-employed scheme and the job scheme. I do not recognise the view that she takes at all. It is in the nature of these schemes to seek to be as comprehensive and swift as possible, which, I think I recall, was exactly the language used by the OECD in describing the Government’s response.
Public Health England Review: Covid-19 Disparities
Rupa Huq Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Kemi Badenoch
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I would have hoped to see more, but I understand that Public Health England did not have all the data it needed. Some of the things not present included comorbidities, population density, public transport use, household composition and housing conditions. That is why it is important that I take this forward. All the things she has listed are things we will definitely be looking at in the next stages.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Anyone in Westminster yesterday could not have failed to notice the Black Lives Matter protest, inspired by Minneapolis. The placard that sticks in my mind most said: “Being black should not be a death sentence”. The Minister talked about having courage and being a black woman herself. She and I are both BME parents. Can we really look into our sons’ eyes and say we acknowledged it? Surely we need action. It is not good enough. When will we see a detailed plan, with deliverables, objectives, dates and buy-in from all our diverse communities, so that this does not just look like a box-ticking exercise?
Kemi Badenoch
I agree that we cannot be seen to be doing a box-ticking exercise, but we also should not just accept statements such as “being black is a death sentence” in this country. It is not true, although it is true there are disparities and other factors that can make outcomes worse. Let us look at that, but let us not in this House use statements such as “being black is a death sentence”. Young people out there hear that, do not understand the context and then continue to believe that they live in a society that is against them, when actually this is one of the best countries in the world in which to be a black person.
Covid-19
Rupa Huq Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab) [V]
If a week is a long time in politics, it is forever in coronavirus, where things change half-hourly. Isolation has brought communities closer together. A hybrid Parliament is better than no Parliament. Given how multi-dimensional covid is, a general debate is welcome, but we need solutions. What began as a health crisis now signals the most serious economic recession on record and touches every aspect of life. We follow the science, but what scientist dreamt up the subliminal “Stay alert” slogan? New terms bring new casework.
Social distancing is reportedly being broken in workplaces, including on the HS2 construction site at Old Oak. The Government must engage with unions, residents and contractors to resolve a situation where residential streets in NW10 have become a dust bowl, with an airborne killer virus on the loose.
Catastrophising is never useful, but neither is empty spin, which is why yesterday felt like such an anti-climax. An address so devoid of facts could not even be fact-checked. “Protect the NHS” has been dropped, an element that was necessitated by a decade of underfunding. Carers who change incontinence pads, turn the elderly and keep them company and who have so long been under-appreciated get a clap every Thursday, but a pay rise is needed as well for all key workers.
At the other end of the age scale, there is a mistaken belief that schools are shut. In Ealing, all of them have remained open—even over Easter—to provide lessons and lunches for the kids of key workers and for those at risk, as well as online working for those who are not. As the National Education Union’s five tests set out, schools should only fully reopen when pupils’ families and staff think it is safe to do so.
Health and safety is not meddlesome when lives are at risk, yet the budgets of the HSE and councils have been slashed. The Government’s Operation Cygnus pandemic planning exercise in 2016 concluded that the UK lacked ICU beds, ventilators and PPE, but action was never taken. Mistakes have been made. We were slow to lock down, and the way the missed test target was expanded to cover those sent out in the post and the death figures have been adjusted to include care home fatalities reminds me of the 1980 “seasonally adjusted” unemployment figures. But many matters can still be rectified.
Cameron famously said,
“we’re all in this together”.
Sadly, ONS data demonstrates that you are four times more likely to die if you are BME. The Opposition have launched an inquiry, led by Baroness Lawrence, while the Government put their fingers in their ears. You are also more likely to die of covid-19 as a London bus driver than as an NHS staffer. Ranjith drove the 92 to Ealing Hospital for years before dying in Ealing Hospital, lacking the PPE needed in a mobile Petri dish that was only deep-cleaned once daily as it left the garage for a long day. Precautions must be put in place, with the coronavirus life insurance scheme extended to transport workers who have paid with their lives to keep our country going in the pandemic.
The Chancellor’s support schemes and furloughing have been welcomed by all sides, and it is wrong to talk of winding them up when they need extending for many who fall through the cracks of their requirements. The Government must act to stop the coronavirus job retention scheme being used by British Airways as a cover for a company restructure and forced redundancies.
Since 2015, I have lived through parliamentary drama —Jo Cox’s murder, referendum, terrorist attack, Grenfell, Brexit, illegal Prorogation. Every time our society and the economy suffer shocks of this magnitude, we are told that we cannot return to the broken system of before. It is imperative that this time, it is for real.
Financial and Social Emergency Support Package
Rupa Huq Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Jeremy Corbyn
My hon. Friend is right. There are lots of enthusiastic volunteers, which is great, but the initiatives need co-ordination and protection. We are dealing with assisting vulnerable people, so we have to be quite clear that the people who are volunteering are responsible and are doing it for all the right motives. All the volunteer groups that I have been in touch with and met are clear about that. They are well organised and responsible in the way that they are doing it, and I thank them for that. All those efforts will help us to overcome the crisis.
It is also necessary to say thank you to those delivering essential public services, especially our national health service staff on the frontline: the medical professionals, healthcare workers, auxiliary staff, administrators, ambulance drivers, paramedics—the whole team in every health facility. They are already very stretched in normal times; now, they are coming under unimaginable pressure and stress at the same time as being vulnerable themselves to contracting coronavirus. We should acknowledge that and say thank you.
We should also say thank you to those in our social care sector, who are so often unrecognised and ignored, and almost always badly paid. They are caring for the most vulnerable people in our society. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) explained earlier, the problem of contracting the virus in a home where people have not been tested only gets worse the longer we delay.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
I completely agree with my right hon. Friend’s approach and the fact that we should all give a socially distant hug to care workers, and to those in other parts of the economy with precarious employment and housing situations. Does he agree that, against the background of the biggest crisis we will ever know, we need a collective approach, and that policies such as nationalising the railways, providing economic stimulus to kick-start our economy, and free broadband do not look so outlandish after all?
Jeremy Corbyn
It was not so long ago that I was making lengthy speeches about those subjects, and I am quite prepared to hand a copy of our manifesto over to the Government. They are already being forced to implement a great deal of it because of the crisis and because of the deficiency in public services that we exposed during the election campaign.
Jesse Norman
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for registering that point and putting it on the record. I will come to the question of communications, and perhaps I can include that point when I do.
As I have said, we stand ready to do whatever it takes to protect our society and economy. The first task has been to buttress our frontline public services. In the Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced a package of support for the public sector—notably a £5 billion covid-19 response fund. Those investments will save lives here and now, and will also fund the research, diagnostic testing and surveillance that will bring the virus to heel over the longer term.
Meanwhile, the Government are working with the business community to bring our nation’s scientific, industrial and commercial expertise to bear behind the public health effort. We are seeing examples of this “can do” attitude all the time, as red tape is slashed, timeframes are condensed, and the public and private sectors pull together as one. Let me give one example. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is fast-tracking applications to authorise the production and use of denatured alcohol. That means that Scottish distilleries and others can turn the ethanol that they have over to the production of alcohol-based hand sanitiser. The usual turnaround time for such requests is 45 days. Since the beginning of March, HMRC has cut that to five days. This has resulted in an additional 2.5 million litres of alcohol for sanitiser being authorised in the last three weeks. We have now gone even further; as announced on 23 March, licensed distillers and gin producers operating in excise warehouses may now use their stocks to produce hand sanitiser without HMRC approval, provided that it is made to World Health Organisation standards or the alcohol used is denatured to the prescribed formulations.
Here, as elsewhere, we see a common approach: decisive action as soon as we can take it; feedback, often from colleagues across Parliament; and improvements as we go. We now have excellent consolidated information on coronavirus available through a single link on gov.uk, and there is specific guidance for businesses from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on a new web page. I had a text message myself from the Government yesterday and the Prime Minister’s broadcast was watched by 27 million people, so I think it is fair to say that the message is getting out there. We have even had Ministers leaving behind their red boxes in order to work online. We know that we must be in the grip of a national crisis when Ministers leave behind their red boxes.
Dr Huq
I am pleased that the Minister is giving us some good news about this advertising campaign—at last, because it seems to have been a bit slow. Could he shed light on two anomalous categories of business, examples of which have contacted me? Buttons Nanny Agency says that domestic staff fall into the category of workers who do have to physically turn up, but it is not clear whether they will retain 80% of their salary; they are in a strange and anomalous position. What is to be done about them? West London English School is a private language school that falls above the rateable value level, but it is an educational service. It is very worried that it is about to shut down. The rateable value of many businesses in my constituency is above £51,000 because it is London and it is different here. Could the Minister do something for them? Very briefly, let me also say that domestic violence is set to rise. Where has the abortion amendment gone? Many of us are concerned that it seems to have vanished.
Jesse Norman
I was just discussing the process of improving the Government response through feedback, often from colleagues, so I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for giving her feedback on those specific areas. In so doing, she will have activated Government processes with the relevant Departments, which will then look at the issues that she has mentioned.
Loan Charge 2019: Sir Amyas Morse Review
Rupa Huq Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Davis
As usual, my right hon. Friend trumps my argument in advance, but I will come back to that in a second.
What that demonstrates—and what my right hon. Friend’s point demonstrates—is a failure of the Treasury and HMRC to write clear and comprehensible legislation. If the judges cannot understand it, what chance is there for ordinary laymen—people who cannot afford to employ an accountant? We are not talking about city slickers or international bankers; we are talking about locum nurses, social workers, careworkers and hospital cleaners.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman’s point that these are not city slickers and tax-avoiding, money-grabbing sorts reminds me of my constituent, Caroline Cheasty. She was a social worker in the public sector, with 24 years’ experience in local authorities. She had a career break, and when she wanted to go back as a locum, she was advised to either form a plc or go with an umbrella company—that is what she did. She came to my surgery in tears. Does he agree that the Government should go after the promoters of these schemes, not the little people?
Mr Davis
I do. The hon. Lady tempts me into a political point, because the Blair Government were the most active promoter of these schemes, but she is right in general.
When something is as unclear as this tax law obviously was, we do not take the date of resolution from the first date that HMRC wins—we do not keep going until we get the answer that the Government want. We take it from the day it is finally resolved in the Supreme Court. The case was not finally and definitively settled by the Supreme Court until 2017, when it found in HMRC’s favour on the Rangers, Dextra and Sempra cases. The Government—this relates to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West—then passed further legislation to clarify the law. Even after the court case, they passed legislation to clarify the law. If it was so clear, why did we need a new law in 2017? That is the fundamental point.
Mr Davis
My hon. Friend is, of course, a skilled businessman; he knows what he is doing, and he is across this sort of thing—it is his job to be across it—but I am not so sure we could say that about a locum nurse or a social worker. This issue was actually at the centre of Sir Amyas Morse’s arguments. He took the view that the attitude from 2017 should apply back to 2010, even though the law was not clear. He took the view that the principle of a taxpayer’s responsibility for their own tax affairs must be upheld. That is the point my hon. Friend is making, and it is right—but only when the law is clear. That means that the Government have a responsibility to make the law clear and not to punish ordinary, hard-working taxpayers when Ministers fail to live up to that responsibility.
HMRC itself seems to disagree on the importance of the taxpayer’s responsibility. Why do I say that? Because until 2014, it did not approach the individual taxpayers; it approached the advisers. It approached the companies that insisted—they did not ask, but they insisted—that these locums and social workers took up this option. HMRC went to the advisers until 2014—until the issue suddenly started to become quite controversial.
Last year, the Prime Minister himself commented on this issue. He said:
“The real culprits in this matter, if I may say so, are not so much the individuals themselves who have decided to use the loan charge as a way of minimising their tax exposure. It’s the people who advised them that it was a sensible thing to do. In my view, we should find a way of going after them.”
That is the Prime Minister’s view, and I happen to agree, unusually.
Mr Davis
If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I am trying to constrain my speech to 15 minutes, and it is beginning to be a struggle with so many interventions.
In summary, these people are now suffering because of a history of poorly drafted regulation and legislation and poor management by HMRC, targeted on the wrong people.
On many occasions, the Minister and his predecessor have told me and the House that the loan charge is not retrospective. In his report, Sir Amyas Morse states:
“The Loan Charge can look back 20 years…This design has been described by HMT as ‘retroactive’.”
The report describes the loan charge throughout as backward looking. HMRC denies that it is retrospective; it says it is retroactive. If I may say so, that is a distinction without a difference. When I looked up “retrospective” in a thesaurus, guess what it said? It defined the word as “retroactive or backward looking”.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rupa Huq Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. He has been a champion of fairer funding for schools, especially in the west midlands, and I agree with him about the importance of this issue. That is precisely why, in the spending round, we made an exception for schools by having a three-year settlement, which means there will be a £7.1 billion increase for schools throughout England by 2022-23, helping to bring fairer funding.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)
The Government take our environmental responsibilities very seriously, and the Prime Minister established the new Cabinet Committee on Climate Change for that very reason. The UK is, of course, the G20 leader in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions while growing our economy. Later this year, the Government will set out further plans to reduce emissions in key sectors such as transport, energy and building while seizing the economic benefits of clean growth. We have launched a review into the transition to a net zero economy and how that will be funded, and the review will publish its findings this autumn.
Dr Huq
I am pleased to see two ideas in the Queen’s Speech that were recycled from previous Labour manifestos: the waiving of NHS car parking charges, and renters’ rights. Will the Government go that bit further and adopt a third idea, our completely costed green new deal? Greenpeace rated the Labour party as best for the environment, whereas the Conservative party languished in fourth. This idea would help the Government to reach their carbon emission targets, which are woefully off track at the moment.
Mr Clarke
The electorate obviously gave their verdict on the relative credibility of our manifesto. This Chamber, on a cross-party basis, should welcome the real consensus that the UK has done the right thing by becoming the first major western economy to commit to a net zero policy. We have allocated £1 billion for the take-up of ultra low emission vehicles, £350 million for the industrial energy transition fund and £800 million in our manifesto for carbon capture and storage.
The hon. Lady says our ambitions in this area are inadequate, but the Committee on Climate Change report of May 2019 did not consider it credible to reach net zero emissions earlier than 2050. The report called it the “highest possible ambition” supported by the science for us to target 2050 rather than an earlier date.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rupa Huq Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
Yes. As I said earlier, it is essential for the high street to evolve to respond to the digital age, but there is no doubt that smaller shops need a breathing space in which to do so, and reducing their business rates this year and next will help them in that regard.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mel Stride)
It is indeed incumbent on HMRC to take its duty of care towards customers—particularly vulnerable customers —very seriously, and I am confident that it does just that. There is a dedicated helpline for those who have been affected by the loan charge, and a vulnerable customers team provides one-to-one support. We recently announced that we would extend the needs enhanced support service to those who are subject to open investigations of their tax returns.
The hon. Lady mentioned promoters. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has already mentioned that more than 100 investigations of companies that promote tax avoidance are currently taking place. Other litigations in respect of offences relating to the disclosure of tax avoidance schemes have resulted in wins for HMRC. In the Hyrax case, which was concluded recently, it was found that the promoter was not behaving appropriately, and about £40 million worth of tax is likely to be recouped as a consequence.