House of Commons Hansard Debates for 15 May 1990

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6.45 pm

Mr. Tim Smith : The hon. Gentleman says that the VAT burden is far greater now than it was 10 years ago. Will he, however, remind the Committee of the number of boxes that the registered trader had to fill in on his VAT return 10 years ago and how many he has to fill in today?

Mr. Haynes : The hon. Gentleman referred earlier to discipline ; now he talks about burdens. I remember the time when the Chancellor of the Exchequer came to the House and said that he intended to double VAT. The hon. Gentleman has forgotten that ; he was not here at the time. The hon. Gentleman talks about burdens, but it is the Government who have imposed burdens on small businesses. That is why my constituents come squealing to my surgery. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer doubled VAT it caused more and more work for small business people. They are sick of it.

In the case of some small businesses, the men still work in the pits. There are only three pits left in my constituency. The wife looks after the small business. They have to get their heads together to work out the VAT and to fill in all the flipping forms that this Government have imposed on them so that they can get in all their money. These poor souls have been down the pit all day. You know what it is like, Mr. Lofthouse, to be down the pit for eight hours a day.

The Temporary Chairman : Order. I am fully aware of the conditions in the pits. I am also fully aware of the contents of clause 9. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will stick to it.

Mr. Haynes : I am talking about small businesses. I hope that you are listening, Mr. Lofthouse.

The Temporary Chairman : The hon. Gentleman is going pretty wide of the clause.

Mr. Haynes : I do not think so, but I do not intend to have an argument with you.

The Temporary Chairman : Order. I happen to think so.

Mr. James Arbuthnot (Wanstead and Woodford) : I am enjoying the hon. Gentleman's speech so much that I almost hate to do this, but does he have any views on the commendable relaxation and simplification of the VAT rules that the clause introduces?

Mr. Haynes : I welcome that change. However, the Government have imposed a great burden on small businesses. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield then dragged me into debating the burden on small businesses. The VAT burden on small businesses is being increased by the Government.

Mr. Hanley : Does the hon. Gentleman know how many miners in his constituency who work eight hours a day down the pit then come out of the pit and do a part-time job with a turnover in excess of £25,000?

Mr. Haynes : Would I be in order if I answered that question, Mr. Lofthouse?

The Temporary Chairman : The hon. Gentleman can answer the question.

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Mr. Haynes : I had to ask because I did not know whether you would step in and rule me out of order if I tried to answer it. I am in the House five days a week so how can I keep track of everyone? What a stupid question. The matter is not funny. However, I think that I have said enough.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Richard Ryder) : The hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) and I have been a powerful force in defence of the British banger. I am happy to say that, although there may be a mad cow disease, as yet there is no mad pig disease--not even among the Gadarene swine. If one did develop, perhaps the hon. Member for Ashfield and I should get together again to save the British banger. Millions of people are grateful to the hon. Gentleman and me for ensuring that it is still on our plates.

Mr. Haynes : Is the Minister aware that the hon. Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames) has just walked into the Chamber and that he, like us, thinks that the British banger is the best in the world?

The Temporary Chairman : The British banger is certainly enjoyable, but it has nothing to do with clause 9.

Mr. Ryder : I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield for reminding me that my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames) enjoys the British banger. However, as my hon. Friend has just walked into the Chamber, I did not need the reminder.

Let me reassure the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen)--who is a member of the Standing Committee on the Finance Bill--that he will find me an open-minded, cordial, friendly, helpful and co-operative Minister who is prepared to examine every conceivable point of view that is put to me. If the hon. Gentleman would like to draw to my attention any VAT forms that he thinks require further simplification, I shall be happy to examine them.

Mr. Allen : I thank the Minister for showing his usual generosity. I guarantee him that I will correspond with him within a fortnight with my suggestions, should I find that any amendments to VAT forms are necessary.

Mr. Ryder : I thank the hon. Gentleman.

All the speakers in this short debate have welcomed the general point made in clause 9. The measures for small and medium-sized businesses were central to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor's Budget, and lie at the heart of the Bill. The revenue cost of the clause, which has been welcomed by the small business community, is about £75 million.

Clauses 9 and 10 may not grab the headlines, but together they provide for nearly a quarter of a billion in legislative assistance for the small business community. They are deliberately targeted at smaller, growing businesses, which--although perhaps less glamorous--are none the less important. Such companies produce a large proportion of our industrial output, and have grown apace during the past few years.

The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) made some observations about the notes on clauses. I will do my best to ensure that they are made clearer than the notes for clause 9. I am only too grateful to the hon. Gentleman for not asking me to explain the notes on clauses, as I would not have been able to do so.

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Clause 9 was welcomed by the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith) and my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton)--I am sorry that he is not a member of the Standing Committee this year. The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury asked about the liability arising at the end of a calendar quarter, for example, rather than at the end of a month. The month-end determination of liability reduces unfair competition from traders who remain unregistered. It also minimises the revenue loss, and maintains an even flow of registration work for Customs. Most businesses keep monthly records of sales and expenses in any event.

The hon. Gentleman was also concerned about the possibility of raising the threshold still further--an argument also pursued by my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton. The original threshold of £5,000 has been increased over the years--in line with inflation--to the present level of £25,400, which is already among the highest in the EEC. A further increase would constitute a breach of our legal obligation under article 24 of the sixth VAT directive, to which my hon. Friend referred.

However, I agree with my hon. Friend's general observations about the threshold, and it is inconceivable that his views will not be put strongly by Ministers whenever suitable opportunities arise in Brussels. As he knows, we want to ensure that the threshold is raised still further, although some industries--such as the building industry--would like it to be lowered. It is not a uniform pattern across small businesses.

Mr. Chris Smith : The Economic Secretary rightly says that the European Commission insists that the rise in the threshold should be no greater than inflation. However, which inflation figure does he mean? Does he mean the inflation figure at the date of the Chancellor's Budget, or an average inflation figure taken over a period of 12 months? If so, which 12 months? The figure used in the calculation relating to clause 9 is 7.6 per cent., but inflation is currently at 9.4 per cent. and rising. Which figure will be used?

Mr. Ryder : When the threshold has been raised over the years, it has not always been raised directly in relation to inflation. The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury would be pursuing the wrong hare if he believed that it had been. If the threshold were raised, that would require another significant loss of revenue, and would further increase the distortion of the balance between registered and unregistered traders.

As an accountant, my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes raised three technical points. As he requests, I shall write to him about them as soon as possible, as I, too, would like to clarify the matter.

This has been a valuable debate. It has shown that the House fully supports clause 9 and the important measures that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has taken to help small businesses. I hope that the House will continue to support the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

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Clause 10

Bad debts

Mr. Chris Smith : I beg to move amendment No. 2, in page 6, line 43, leave out his accounts' and insert

the accounting records from which the accounts of the business for the period in which the write off occurs have been or will be prepared'.

The Temporary Chairman : With this we may take the following amendments : No. 37, in page 6, line 43, leave out accounts' and insert books and records'.

No. 3, in page 6, line 44, leave out two years' and insert one year'.

No. 1, page 6, line 45, after elapsed', insert

, or the company or individual liable to pay any outstanding amount of the consideration has become insolvent and (except where Paragraph 10 (1A)(b) below applies) the person has submitted a claim in the insolvency for the outstanding amount of the consideration. (1A) a company becomes insolvent for the purposes of this section if :

(a) it goes into liquidation in the United Kingdom or the Isle of Man at a time when its assets are insufficient for the payment of its debts and other liabilities and the expenses of the winding up ; (

(b) a person who has been appointed in Great Britain to act as the Administrator or Administrative Receiver issues a certificate of his opinion that, if it went into liquidation, the assets of the company would be insufficient to cover the payment of any dividend in respect of debts which are neither secured nor preferential ; or

(1B) An individual becomes insolvent for the purposes of this section if :

(a) in England and Wales he is adjudged bankrupt, a deed of arrangement is made for the benefit of his creditors, a composition or scheme proposed by him is approved under Part VIII of the Insolvency Act 1986 or, after his death, his estate falls to be administered in accordance with an order under Part XV of that Act ; (

(b) in Scotland, sequestration of his estate is awarded, he signs a trust deed for his creditors or, after his death, a judicial factor is appointed under Section 11A of the Judicial Factors (Scotland) Act 1889 to administer his estate ;

(c) in Northern Ireland he is adjudged bankrupt, a deed of arrangement is made for the benefit of his creditors, a resolution of his creditors is approved by the court under Section 5 of the Bankruptcy Amendment Act (Northern Ireland) 1929 or, after his death, the court makes an order for the administration in bankruptcy of his estate ; or

(d) in the Isle of Man, he is adjudged bankrupt, a deed of arrangement is made for the benefit of his creditors or, after his death, the court makes an order for the administration in bankruptcy of his estate.'.

No. 24, in page 7, line 4, at end insert

but no claim may be made before 1st December 1990.'.

No. 38, in page 7, line 18, leave out from (b)' to the end of line 20.

Mr. Smith : Clause 10 relates to bad debt relief for VAT. It will cost the Exchequer £150 million in a full year, so we are talking about a substantial measure and it is important to ensure that the Government have got it right. We broadly welcome the Government's aim in the clause but do not think they have it right, and we have tabled amendments to improve it. I hope that when he returns to

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his place, the Economic Secretary will address the issues involved in the clause in the open-minded manner that he promised he would adopt in our discussions on the Bill.

The Government have made much of the claim that the clause will ease the position of VAT recovery for small businesses. Our fear is that there are some limited circumstances in which the clause will make matters worse, and we have tabled amendments to correct that problem. I shall return to that issue later as I deal in detail with our amendments. It is important at the outset to recognise the context in which the debate is taking place, and to that end it is necessary to examine the overall context in which small businesses find themselves.

Small, if useful, measures on VAT registration and bad debt relief are as nothing beside the two overwhelming and dominating facts of life for small businesses in Britain today. Those are high interest rates and the introduction of the uniform business rate.

7 pm

High interest rates have been adopted by the Government as the only policy that is supposed to operate as a deterrent to demand and credit in the British economy. As we know, high interest rates are not particularly good instruments as a deterrent to demand. As we pointed out on Second Reading, since the former Chancellor began to tighten credit by raising the cost of money, £150 billion-worth of additional credit has gone into the domestic economy. The profit figures announced this morning by Sainsbury show that the impact on the demand side of the economy has been imperfect at best. But the problem with high interest rates is that they harm the supply side of the equation, too. It becomes crucial for small businesses because of the results of the harm on the supply side. Large-scale business tends to invest out of its own profits. Small business must borrow to invest, to grow and to take the decisions about future expansion that must be taken.

The reality is clear. For example, the chairman of the Midland bank, Sir Kit McMahon, was reported on 24 April last to have said : "High interest rates were hitting businesses as well as individuals and leading to a worsening of the bank's bad debts."

That was a clear indication from the Midland bank, echoed a couple of days later by the deputy chairman of Barclays bank, that small businesses throughout the country were facing enormous difficulty as a result of the Government's high interest rate policy.

The accountants Peat, Marwick, McLintock reported a 27 per cent. rise in the number of companies going into voluntary liquidation in the first quarter of this year. That is the background for small businesses against which we come to this debate about VAT changes for small businesses.

At the same time as high interest rates are operating on small businesses, the uniform business rate is having a great impact, especially in the south of the country, on the small-scale retailing sector. Even the transitional protection that the Government have supposedly introduced will not make life much better for small businesses faced with the certainty of major increases in the rates that they will pay in each of the next five years. We must consider clause 10 against that background. Likewise, we must consider the changes that our amendments would make to the clause. There are two forms of trader who are not affected by clause 10. A

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limited number of traders use either the cash accounting scheme or the retailers' standard method scheme. Under either of those, output VAT is accounted for only when cash is received. So bad debt relief is automatic for firms in those categories.

All other traders will find the clause important. For them, VAT must at present be accounted for to Customs on the basis of VAT invoices issued, regardless of whether the money has been received. As a result, if a trader charges a customer £100 of VAT, he must at the time of his next VAT return account for that £100 to Customs and Excise, whether or not he has received the money.

If the £100 is not received, because the customer defaults, how can the trader get his £100 back or have it recredited? Until the date of the Budget, he could get it back only if the debtor became formally insolvent, and the formal definition of insolvency--generally either bankruptcy or liquidation--was set out in section 22 of the Value Added Tax Act 1983.

If a debtor simply did not pay or became untraceable--if he disappeared or, in the case of large companies, the debt was small--it was not worthwhile tracking the debtor down, making him bankrupt and petitioning for a company's liquidation. As a result, even where a debt had been written off and was clearly not recoverable, VAT bad debt relief was often not available. As larger debtors were chased and as larger creditors tended to pursue debts as a matter of principle, the problem tended to affect mainly relatively small debts owed to small and medium-sized traders.

Overall, taken in total, a substantial amount of money is involved and it has been a source of great irritation to many businesses. For example, in the credit card operation of one major high street retailer, in 1988-89 £12 million of small debts, of under £500 each, was written off. By doing that, the company would have lost some £1.8 million in VAT bad debt relief. So in some instances we are talking about substantial sums of money and a substantial impact upon the cash flow of companies.

The new relief which clause 10 introduces allows the £100 of VAT to be reclaimed or recredited after three things have happened. First, the VAT has to have been paid over by the trader to Her Majesty's Customs and Excise before it can subsequently be reclaimed under the provisions of the clause. Secondly, the debt has to be written off in the company's accounts, and thirdly--the point to which our principal amendment relates--at least two years must elapse from the date of the supply.

Representative bodies of small businesses have been pressing for such bad debt relief for many years, so it is a welcome change. However, the pressure was for such a change to be made as an alternative to the existing system, not as a complete and total replacement for it. Our other main amendment seeks to enshrine that principle so that after Royal Assent the new clause 10 provisions are not a total replacement for the existing provisions, and to allow them to run side by side.

Mr. Tim Smith : I do not fully understand one aspect of the hon. Gentleman's argument. I do not understand why it is thought that clause 10 is so important for small businesses. Any small business with a turnover of less than £250,000, which is not that much, can opt for cash accounting. If a company opts for cash accounting it has to account for output only when it receives the cash. Small

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businesses do not have to worry about all that, so why is the clause so important for small businesses if they can opt for cash accounting?

Mr. Chris Smith : I am surprised by the hon. Gentleman, who is normally somewhat more perceptive. Of course the clause is important to small businesses, as it is to larger businesses, but larger businesses can frequently tolerate greater ups and downs in their cash flow than can small businesses which have not opted for cash accounting. I made it clear at the beginning of my remarks that the cash accounting principle was excluded from the provisions for bad debt relief because VAT is not claimed at the point of supply. The hon. Gentleman must realise that large numbers of small businesses are affected by the provisions of clause 10 for whom the deficiencies of clause 10 are likely to be important.

The new relief will be introduced in place of the old relief and schedule 16 of the Bill, which no doubt we shall be discussing in some weeks' time, repeals section 22 of the Value Added Tax Act 1983.

7.15 pm

The problem is that, where prompt relief might have been possible under the old system, it is likely to be delayed under the new system. Let me illustrate that. If a major trader, which we shall call Ryder and Co., is rendering quarterly VAT returns and in July 1990 Ryder and Co. sells goods to another company--let us call it Lilley and Co.--for £1 million plus VAT of £150,000. Payment is due in 60 days. At the end of September 1990, Ryder and Co. pays the £150, 000 to Her Majesty's Customs and Excise. Lilley and Co. has not yet paid Ryder and Co.

In October, Ryder presses Lilley for payment and hears that Lilley may be insolvent. In November Ryder petitions for Lilley's liquidation and in December Ryder submits proof to the liquidator who responds that the company is likely to receive £230,000 in due course. Ryder therefore writes off £920,000 in its year-end accounts and with December 1990 VAT return claims repayment of £120,000. Effectively, under the existing system of claim back the repayment would have taken only one VAT quarter. In practice that would be unusually quick, but not totally uncommon.

Under the new system, Ryder and Co. would have to wait until at least July 1992--two years after the supply and seven VAT quarters after paying over the VAT--before being able to recover the £120,000 from Customs and Excise. Potentially that could be a crippling blow, because a further £800,000 would already have been lost as a result of the non-payment. At an estimated 15 per cent. cash flow cost, the cash flow cost to the company would be at least £18,000. It is therefore perfectly conceivable that under the changes that the Government have introduced, in some circumstances bad debt relief will be worse than under the existing system. In those circumstances the reforms in clause 10 could cost traders money. They would get additional relief for smaller bad debts, but would suffer delays in receiving relief for larger debts.

The amendments seek to relieve or eliminate the problem. Amendment No. 3 is our principal amendment and unless the Government can satisfy us on it, we might divide the Committee. The amendment seeks to reduce the two-year time limit in clause 10(1)(c) to one year. If it takes an average of nine months from the date of supply to obtain bad debt relief under the old system--the period

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that would normally apply if the debtor went into liquidation--and if a one-year rather than a two-year period were to operate, the new system would simply add three months' delay rather than the 15 months' delay that would apply under current proposals. The period of one year would be more appropriate and sensible. It would allow for 80 days of credit, five months of arguing--if discussions were appropriate-- and six months to write off the debt.

Amendment No. 3 would provide that instead of having to wait two years before it can get bad debt relief, a company should have to wait only one year. That seems to provide a better framework for business without causing insuperable administrative problems for Customs and Excise.

Amendment No. 1 would reinstate the old section 22 test as an alternative to the time lapse test. As I said earlier, the amendment would set the old system for relief where liquidation took place alongside the new system, rather than allowing the new system totally to eradicate the old. If liquidation took place within a short period after the supply of goods or services, the old system operated fairly effectively. Under the Government's proposals the two-year time limit has to expire before relief can be obtained. Amendment No. 1 seeks to reinstate the old system to run in parallel with the new, and offers the two as alternatives to the business community.

Amendment No. 2 is slightly more technical ; the Liberal Democrats have tabled a similar amendment, No. 37. Amendment No. 2 has two aims. First, under new Inland Revenue regulations, small traders can present simplified accounts to support a tax return and there is no statutory requirement to produce full accounts. Some small traders may not have accounts which would satisfy clause 10(1)(b). Their three-line accounts will not identify bad debts as part of the specific acccounts prepared by the company. The amendment requires only that the account be written off in the accounting records from which the accounts, however simple, have been or will be prepared. Even smaller traders will have such records, which are a VAT requirement.

The second reason for amendment No. 2 is that the wording of clause 10(1)(b) could in some circumstances cause problems. Let us assume that the Government were to decide that although our proposal for a 12-month period is not acceptable, none the less two years is too long, and in due course proposed shortening the period to 15 months. If a company had a debt of £1 million, with VAT of £150,000 already paid to Her Majesty's Customs, dating from March 1991, the debt would not be written off in the December 1991 acounts but would be written off in the May 1992 ledger. To satisfy the provisions of clause 10(1)(b), the company could not reclaim the VAT until the audited 1992 accounts were available, say, in April 1993.

In the amendment, we suggest that the proof that the debt was written off should not have to wait until the published accounts but should be demonstrable by entries in the company's ledgers, which would be used in the compilation of the accounts. That would mean that the company would not have to wait, possibly for several years, for the bad debt relief.

I wish to make three other brief points in respect of the clause. First, the power in clause 10(5)(g) to let the commissioners make regulations which

"make different provision for different circumstances"

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appear to be drawn rather widely. Obviously, we wish to ensure that the commissioners have the powers they need, but the provisions of that part of the clause seem wide. Although regulations will be promulgated under the provision, we ask the Government to ensure that any such regulations are issued in draft for comment before promulgation takes place.

Secondly, clause 10(4)(a) is clearly aimed at the position where someone deliberately overcharges another person for a supply, crediting the VAT on the VAT return of the person receiving the supply, with the supplier then recovering it under the new rules. We wish to catch precisely such abuse as well. The wording of clause 10(4)(a)--

"equal to or less than its open market value"--

seems to be drawn extremely tightly. It is reminiscent of Shylock's pound of flesh when even £1 worth above the stated value would immediately disqualify the entire bad debt relief. That seems tough. We hope that the Government will consider a phrase such as, "the value of the supply not being substantially greater than the open market value".

Thirdly, I note that the Liberal Democrats have tabled amendment No. 38 in respect of clause 10(4)(b). There might be a problem with the provision where goods are sold under hire purchase or under a Romalpa clause, whereby in strict law title remains with the vendor until the goods are fully paid for, but where the goods are not recovered by the vendor when the purchaser defaults. Unless clause 10(4)(b) is withdrawn or amended, a strict interpretation would mean that bad debt relief would not be due in such cases. It would be useful to have an assurance that the regulations will allow relief to be claimed.

I have tried to outline on these complicated and technical matters the purpose of our amendments. We agree entirely with the aim upon which the Government have embarked in clause 10 to make life better and easier for businesses claiming bad debt relief. We do not think that the Government have got it entirely right. We have tabled the amendments in a spirit of helpfulness to the Government and in the hope that improvements will be made.

Sir Barney Hayhoe (Brentford and Isleworth) : The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) was less than generous in his welcome to a worthwhile and overdue reform. It is no secret that sometimes Ministers, as a result of collective responsibility, have to support and take action on matters with which they are not in 100 per cent. agreement. That was certainly true for me in the mid-1980s when I was a Treasury Minister with responsibility for indirect taxation.

Having had a hand in the reform of bad debt provision in regard to insolvency, I always recognised that very hard cases still remained in which groups of traders were suffering, because at that time we were unable, with the expertise available to the Customs and Excise, to come up with a scheme as wide in operation as that now proposed. I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary--who has, I imagine, dealt with the detail of the provisions--on bringing forward this reform. I can remember a number of times on which I had to write letters to traders who could not believe that the system was fair. I had to say to them that VAT operated on the supply

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of goods and services and not on the payment for them. It was bad enough when people defaulted on paying the fees or the charges for the goods or services supplied, but when the traders who were suffering from that bad debt had only limited redress through the insolvency provisions and often had no redress in reclaiming the VAT, one realised that the problem required Government action. The Government have now moved substantially in that direction at a significant cost of between £150 million and £200 million in a full year. That is a substantial contribution by the Government towards putting right something that has been wrong for too long. This is an excellent provision in what I regard as a good, fair and responsible Budget. It is with great pleasure that I commend clause 10, although I have a little trace of regret that when I had Treasury responsibility, I was unable to take the helpful action that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary have now taken.

7.30 pm

Mr. Beith : Clause 10 is a welcome feature of the Bill and addresses part of a major problem for smaller businesses. Bad debt is the tip of the iceberg of the problem of debt and late payment, which besets small business to such an extent that it has given rise to pleas for legislation and to private Members' Bills which have addressed the wider issue of late payment. Government Departments themselves are sometimes open to substantial criticism because many small businesses find it most difficult of all to deal with Government agencies.

There is also a case for the Government, perhaps through training programmes, through the training and enterprise councils and through help for small businesses to direct attention towards ways of stopping bad debt problems mounting up and to encourage new businesses to put invoice and collection systems properly in place from the beginning. In my experience, many good craftsmen and tradesmen are often slow to send in their bills, so they are slow to realise that bad debts will arise.

I am sometimes amazed by how long people who have done decent jobs wait to get paid and how often they fail to issue an initial invoice, let alone chase up the debt involved. That is often because such tradesmen are good at doing the job rather than good at the technicalities of chasing payment. However, there are so many relatively simple computer systems now that small business can be given every help and encouragement to stop the problem building up. Clause 10 addresses the extreme end of the problem-- genuine bad debt. In a wide-ranging speech, the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) talked about the banks and their involvement. It struck me at the time that it is all very well for the banks to talk about bad debt when they have found that the worst bad debts are caused not by the expansion of demand in the retail trade, but in Third -world countries and in agriculture.

Mr. Neil Hamilton : Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there would not have been so many bad debts if the banks had not been such bad lenders?

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