Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the forthcoming changes to IR35 legislation on the willingness of large companies to employ self-employed contractors.

The Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN) published in July 2019 set out HMRC's assessment that extending the reform to large and medium sized organisations in public and third sectors is not expected to have any significant macro-economic impacts. The TIIN can be found here: https://bit.ly/2YTbOaA. In addition, independent research conducted by IFF Research and Frontier Economics, following the implementation of the off-payroll reform in the public sector in 2017, showed that the reform had not resulted in significant disruption to the sector, or to its use of contingent labour.

The Government announced a review of changes to off-payroll working rules on 7 January 2020 to determine if any further steps can be taken to ensure the smooth and successful implementation of the reform due to come into force in April 2020. The review will also consider whether any additional support for businesses is needed to ensure that the self-employed, who are not in scope of the rules, are not affected. The review will conclude in mid-February 2020.