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Mr. Edward Davey: The hon. Gentleman is completely misrepresenting the issue. The self-employed IT contractor does not receive the sickness and unemployment benefits that the hon. Gentleman is trying to claim that he would receive: the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood the tax change that we are debating.
Mr. Bermingham: In fact, the hon. Gentleman has completely misunderstood what I am saying. I said that, for someone who is self-employed, those are the disadvantages. If the IT contractor is genuinely self- employed and consults an accountant, he will be in exactly the same position as others and there will be no problem. I do not understand the sudden assumption that there is a difference.
Mr. Malcolm Bruce (Gordon): I know that the hon. Member for Aberdeen, Central (Mr. Doran) has already raised this issue, but may I raise a specific point relating to contractors in the oil industry? They do not have the option of becoming self-employed, because the oil companies will not deal with them if they do. They must set themselves up as separate businesses, yet they are restricted to the 5 per cent. allowance. Many of my constituents say that their expenses constitute 10, 15 or 20 per cent., but that they cannot reclaim those amounts. Is that fair?
Mr. Bermingham: That is exactly why I accept what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, Central (Mr. Doran). I was about to refer to exceptional circumstances in which the nature of the industry--[Interruption.] Just one second. In such circumstances, the nature of the industry creates a climate in which a level playing field is not possible.
I accept the concept that lies behind what the Government seek to do. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, Central, I also accept that there are exceptional circumstances that need to be dealt with. However, we must not throw out the baby with the bathwater; we must seek to rectify the situation, and perhaps that will happen later.
That is why I was rude about the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton. In fact, when I intervened on him I was trying to be helpful. If he does not accept that, it is sad. Sometimes I try to be helpful even to Liberal Democrats, although it goes very much against the grain. It was, however, the speech of the hon. Member for Lichfield that prompted me to speak, because again it was the wrong point in the lunar cycle and we got a rant.
Mr. Fabricant: On a point of order, Dr. Clark. Is it in order for one Member to make personal remarks about another?
The Temporary Chairman (Dr. Michael Clark): I do not think that I heard any personal remarks.
Mr. Bermingham: I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, Central, who made a valuable
point. I hope that it will be taken on board, that eventually self-employed will mean self-employed, and that the advantages and disadvantages will be the same for all self-employed people, whatever their field.
Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine): I welcome the contribution that we have just heard because it highlighted the problems of the oil industry and reinforced the point already made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, Central (Mr. Doran). I too represent a constituency in the north-east of Scotland, where many constituents are concerned about how the proposals in IR35 will affect them. I reinforce the point that it is not just the one sector--the IT industry--that will be affected; several sectors are affected.
When the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill was going through the House last year, many Labour Members were completely blank as to whether there was a problem at all, or where it was coming from. It seems to be an issue that affects some constituencies very badly and does not touch other constituencies. Well over 60 constituents have raised the issue with me directly, yet I have talked to Members from other parts of the country and not a single constituent has raised it with them. That is why the understanding is perhaps deeper among some Members than others.
I reinforce the point about the oil industry. I hope that if the Government cannot take it on board tonight, they will at least hint that they will take it on board later in the Standing Committee. People find themselves working through single-person companies not because they went to an accountant and said, "How can I minimise my tax take?" but because they lost their job, and setting themselves up to work through a single-person company was the only way they could get another.
The Government must therefore look carefully at the arbitrary 5 per cent. costing and explain where it came from and how it was worked out. Why can they not recognise genuine costs that have been incurred by someone trying to operate a company, and look at the actual costs on a case-by-case basis, individual by individual?
The other problem in the oil industry is the ageing profile of the people working in it. Many of them are getting near to retirement. They are trapped, having made their financial plans on the basis of the current arrangements. I wonder whether the Government could give them any hint, advice or certainty as to how they might sort out their pension arrangements and what their future plans should be if the Government push through their proposals unamended. Now that those people are so near to retirement, there is little scope for them to make adjustments. They have planned on the basis of a way of working and a tax regime that they understood, working towards retirement.
Others may have made slightly better provision for retirement, but there is a threat of skill shortages. The downturn in the oil industry and the low prices have masked a serious recruitment problem. The next generation is not coming into the industry. Some people will look at the proposals, the way their life is going and what they have already sorted out and will say, "Perhaps early retirement is the way forward for me." There could be a loss of skills and a loss of work force.
I hope that we will hear from the Government that they recognise that it is not just an IT problem, but one that affects other sectors in the economy--it affects many in
the north-east of Scotland in particular--and that the people coming to my surgeries who face 20 per cent. cuts in their contract income, as the hon. Member for Aberdeen, Central has already said, are not high-flying earners looking for a great tax avoidance regime. The industry is structured in a certain way, so they have worked in that way. They have now been hit by a sledgehammer and are looking for some reassurance from the Government that, finally, at the 11th hour, there will be an understanding that they have genuine costs that need to be met and recognised.
Mr. Swayne: In view of the lucid exposition given by my right hon. and hon. Friends, from which we have all just benefited, and particularly in view of the robust contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant), I shall not need to detain the Committee long.
Like my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Sir N. Lyell), I have benefited from meeting many intelligent and articulate constituents who have brought their concerns about the measure to me, but they are not quite as clever as some of us might imagine. I had about 30 written representations and have met half the authors. About two thirds of them--let us say 10 of them--prefaced their remarks with the extraordinary and unprompted admission: "I did not vote for you. I am very sorry, Mr. Swayne. I voted new Labour for the first time at the general election." One cannot help having a slight smirk on one's face and saying, "Is it not a measure of your own contributory negligence that you now find yourself in the position that you are in?" They were warned that it would be like this and that is how it has turned out. However, one has to rise above that personal, selfish, unworthy reaction and consider the national problem that is being engendered by the measure, which will affect not only our own constituents.
7.15 pm
The Government's attitude has been given away by the terminology that they have used. They have spoken of disguised employment that should be otherwise--that should be proper employment. It is a Canute-like attitude. They do not like the world that they find but want it to be otherwise and introduced the measure to make it so.
The world is different for a good reason. For 10 years before I was elected to the House, I worked as a systems analyst for a large bank. That 10 years spanned the change--
Mr. Campbell-Savours: Who was analysing whom?
Mr. Swayne: For the benefit of the hon. Gentleman, who comments from a sedentary position, I was analysing risk management systems and dealing rooms at the cutting edge of modern technology, so I know what I am talking about. Those 10 years spanned great change in the industry. When I started, the IT department of the bank was effectively the monopoly supplier of IT services to the bank, but the technology itself changed and became much more project driven.
We required skills that we did not have. Those skills had to be acquired from the marketplace, but, given the nature of technical change, they were necessary only for a short period so we found ourselves relying much more heavily on the contract market.
Yes, we employed as contractors people whom we had previously employed full-time. That was not because we were a bogey employer who made people redundant and then tried to find a cheap way of employing them subsequently; it is the nature of the change in technology that has driven these things. The Government's attempts to turn back the clock by altering the tax system and the national insurance framework will fail, to the detriment of the industry as a whole and to our economy.
Last night, the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) seemed unable to appreciate the fact that--[Interruption.] I can remember. He seemed to be unable to appreciate the fact that people change their behaviour in response to economic stimuli. He will recall that in the debate on excise duty he would not accept that a large price differential would affect how much that people traded legally or illegally in a market. That is precisely the attitude that now seems to dog Labour Members.
I accept entirely the force of the argument that has been made by Labour Members that if the IT high-tech contractor, who has largely been the focus of the debate, suffers certain disadvantages in respect of his employment conditions--the lack of sick pay, the lack of holiday pay or whatever--he will need to be recompensed through the pay packet, rather than through the tax system. That argument has force, but Labour Members fail to appreciate that we are, in effect, in a global market. Employees and companies can consider the conditions and the tax situation that apply elsewhere.
People who have skills and are capable of moving elsewhere will do so if they perceive that the circumstances will benefit them. That was precisely what the hon. Gentleman could not understand last night about the sale of cigarettes. It is also precisely what he cannot understand about the IT industry and how people move in response to economic stimuli.
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