|
Issue 10; 23 May 1999
House of Commons Debate | PCG Submission
We are now at the end of a very important week for our
campaign.
On Monday The House of Commons debated an amendment to
The Welfare Reform Bill an eleventh hour introduction by
the Government, which to us, looks like the legislative
start to IR35.
Those of you who watched that debate, on television, will
have seen that, whilst the Tory and Lib/Dem benches were
reasonably full, the Labour benches were empty.
At 11pm, when the matter was put to the vote, the Government
had a majority of 193 (375 - 182). After the vote the Labour
benches were still empty. This goes to show that, whilst
showing no interest in the subject, Labour members were
willing to simply vote the way their whips told them to.
Talk about "lobby fodder", but more of that later.
A number of members have asked if we should continue with
our campaign and, haven't we just simply lost. The answer
is an emphatic NO. We should not give up, we may have lost
this minor skirmish but we have, most definitely, not lost
the battle.
The matter now goes to The House of Lords, where the amendment
can and probably will be overturned. We shall certainly
be briefing Peers and we will have a lot longer than three
days, to do it in.
Question? Will the Government want to play ping pong
with this amendment. Answer-Probably not
The Government now know that this is an unpopular measure
and many people have seen through the original statement
that this was a net to catch people who left work on a Friday
only to start work the following Monday as a "Consultant".
Some, of course, do just that and the PCG have made it clear
that we are broadly in favour of the Governments move if
this were the sole purpose, the Friday/Monday scenario.
However, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Government
are attempting to change the rules on incorporation so that
small, one man operations will lose all the advantages.
The longer the issue goes on, the more that intent will
be seen. You may have seen the start of newspaper articles
saying that the Government have made a mistake on this one.
An excellent example is a recent item in The
Times - You may expect to see more.
Whatever the outcome of the amendment to The Welfare Reform
Bill, its content cannot come into effect before the Finance
Bill 2000 is passed.
Returning to this week. On Thursday the Professional Contractors
Group delivered its submission to The Inland Revenue. This
submission is available in PDF format and may be downloaded
at https://www.pcgroup.org.uk/resources.irsubmission1.pdf
(32Kb). The supporting survey report may also be downloaded
at http://www.shout99.com/contractors/survey/survey.pdf
(70Kb)
That submission is the start of the consultation process
announced by the Revenue and it is to be followed up by
a meeting on Thursday 10th June. PCG have been invited to
be at that meeting. We represent a large body and our views
should be heard.
Whilst we expect the Revenue and The Government to dig
their heels in, at least for the time being, I must repeat
This is a battle we can win providing we stay together.
Returning to Labour MPs. Next week I shall publish a list
of all those who voted for the amendment on the PCG members
site. If any of them are your MP you may care to write and
ask them "Did you understand the issues"? "Why did you vote
to put my future in jeopardy" ?
Finally, to those who have not yet joined the PCG and paid
their subscription I simply say this. United we stand and
have a chance. Divided________
David Ramsden
Campaign Director
Make a difference: Join the Campaign; https://www.pcgroup.org.uk
|
