Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his tax policies of the conclusions of the report entitled the BBC’s engagement with personal service companies, published by the National Audit Office in November 2018.

The National Audit Office (NAO) report concerns one organisation’s use of personal service companies over the last two decades, concluding with its experience of implementing the April 2017 reform of the off-payroll working rules in the public sector. The report does not comment on the off-payroll working rules themselves.

The off-payroll working rules ensure that individuals who work through their own personal service company, and would have been an employee had they provided their services directly, pay broadly the same tax and National Insurance contributions (NICs) as other employees. The rules do not affect the genuinely self-employed.