PCG Newsletter - 32/01 - October 4th: Labour Party, conference

In this issue:

• PCG's Presence at the Labour Party Conference;
• Judicial Review of IR35 - the Appeal
• PCG agm and conference.

PCG Presence at Labour Party Conference

PCG's public affairs team attended the Labour Party conference to put forward the PCG's position on a number of issues relating to contractors in a series of meetings and discussions with Ministers, MPs, party workers and other interested groups.

The PCG also arranged the first fringe meeting held at a party conference event by contractors with Tony McWalter MP; Andy White, founder of the PCG and PCG's Chairman Jane Akshar addressing an audience of 30 contractors and delegates.

The meetings and discussions have opened the door to follow up dialogues with a number of Ministers and MPs including Treasury and DTI Ministers.

Full daily conference reports, discussion and action plans are available in the 'Lobbying and External Affairs Forum'. https://www.pcgroup.org.uk/threads/wwwthreads.pl?a=l&f;=3

Judicial Review of IR35 - The Appeal

As members will know PCG has been granted leave to appeal against the judgment of Mr Justice Burton in dismissing our judicial review against IR35 in April this year.

The PCG appeal is scheduled to begin on 19th or 20th November and to last for three days.

We have exchanged skeleton arguments with counsel for the Inland Revenue, and a case conference was held on Thursday 27th September.

We are pursuing our case against IR35 under EU law on the grounds of 'State Aid' and 'Freedom of Movement' to argue that IR35 should be struck down.

For access to the original judgement, the skeleton argument for the appeal, and discussion by members, go here: https://www.pcgroup.org.uk/threads/showpost.pl?f=legal-42205

PCG AGM & Conference

There is a week to go before PCG‚s 2001 AGM & Conference in York, on Saturday, 13th October. This is an opportunity for members to get involved in the organisation and meet many fellow PCGers. This year's conference has a strong panel of experts; a detailed programme and opportunities for networking and socialising. The PCG will be looking to members to participate fully in the conference and set the agenda and ideas for the future.

Members should have received the brochure information in the post and there are a number of threads on the site discussing the event.

There is a full programme consisting of four different sessions and a number of guest speakers including:

Prof. Richard Scase - Leading Professional Facilitator
Peter Harrington - Small Business Marketing Specialist
Anne Redston - Ernst & Young
Anne Swain - ATSCO
Kevin Miller - PCG
David Smith - Accountax
Bond Pearce - Employment Specialists

Gyles Brandreth - After Dinner Speaker

We have also organised something for the partners so that you can make real weekend of it. York is a beautiful city with plenty to see and do. See https://www.pcgroup.org.uk/members/conference2001/tourism.html

For more information on the conference please see https://www.pcgroup.org.uk/members/conference2001/index.html

Susie Hughes
(Head of Executive Services)

This newsletter is published by the Professional Contractors Group. Please feel free to circulate the newsletter to other independent contractors who you know, and who may be interested in joining the PCG. Some links in the newsletter will take you into the password-protected members' area of the PCG website. If you have forgotten your password, contact https://www.pcgroup.org.uk/scripts/public/access/form.pl

To view the Forum links in this newsletter, you must be first logged into the Forum. Further details available at https://www.pcgroup.org.uk/members/discussion_forum.html