Making Tax Digital

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

The short answer is yes; it can be found on gov.uk. Indeed we have also produced a partnership pack for intermediaries, which sets out in very clear language exactly what is involved and what will be expected of those businesses and individuals.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I do not know whether the Minister is familiar with young children’s literature, but Roger Hargreaves is a popular choice as the inventor of the Mr Men. I am not accusing the Minister of being Mr Tickle or Mr Silly, but perhaps today he is Mr Smug. The fact is that small and medium-sized enterprises in my constituency and around the country have been knocked sideways by the changes in the training levy, which relates to how they get their people skilled and trained. They have not yet digested that, but now we have another onslaught with digitisation. Is he aware that many of my constituents are going to be forced into the hands of so-called professional people—accountants—who will charge them a great deal of money to do this process for them?

[Mel Stride]

I am indeed familiar with the work of Roger Hargreaves. I am not sure whether there was a Mr Cautious or a Mr Sensible, but I think they would be more appropriate than Mr Tickle or Mr Silly. To answer the hon. Gentleman’s question, in terms of navigating around the various options, we are providing clear guidance that is very easy to follow, and 98% of those businesses and individuals that will be impacted are already filing their VAT returns digitally. Among the software products available, there is bridging software that allows companies to continue to make use of spreadsheets while using the software, some of which is free, to make their submission to HMRC.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

We do agree with that. All the evidence suggests that small businesses would benefit from better quality advice across a range of areas. Recently in the Budget, we have supported extra funding for networks, to bring businesses together, and we are working across the Government to think about ways in which we can improve the quality of advice and increase competition within business advisory services.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister should take some advice from someone who has been in the House a long time: bragging about being an “every 75 minutes” Minister is very dangerous. I have just checked and in Huddersfield it is cloudy but not cold, but the economic temperature is freezing: start-ups are not starting, the new creative businesses are putting everything on hold, and until they have some reassurance about Brexit, they will not move.

[Robert Jenrick]

If the hon. Gentleman wanted to give greater certainty to businesses in his constituency, he would support the deal. He did not do so in the recent vote, but I hope he will come forward and do so shortly. I would not be so negative about the business community and the state of the economy in Yorkshire. We have record levels of employment, the jobs market is the second best in the country and real wages are rising. In Yorkshire, real wages and household disposable income are rising above the national average.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hammond]

The Government have made a cross-departmental assessment of the medium to long-term effects of different Brexit outcomes, which the Government have published. The Bank of England, because it is better equipped to do so, has made an assessment of the short-term impacts of leaving the EU under different scenarios, which it has published.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

You’re the Chancellor of the Exchequer. You should have made it yourself.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is a cerebral denizen of the House. I know he is arguing the toss about what he thinks is the inapplicability of the personal views or the professional opinion of the Chancellor, but he should not offer a lecture from a sedentary position. We are accustomed to hearing this eloquence when he is on his feet. We do not need to hear him when he is in his seat.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hammond]

The Labour party will have to get its act together, and organise a discussion between its Front Benchers and its Back Benchers.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

You ought to get your act together.

[Mr Hammond]

Well, I know where the deep divisions lie. [Interruption.] We have heard many Opposition Members express concern about a lack of investment and the potential relocation of businesses, but now the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) has popped up on the Front Bench suggesting that we hit business with an additional tax charge. Labour is the party that is proposing to increase corporation tax for businesses, including the smallest in our country. We will remain the party that is encouraging businesses, large and small, by ensuring that ours is an attractive jurisdiction for investment to take place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hammond]

The Department for Transport has complied with all the Treasury’s Green Book procedures in letting the contract in question, and the decision to go ahead will have been taken with the consent of the Department for Transport’s accounting officer.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I may have erroneously misled the House when I said that the Minister said that the Government were creating 75 businesses a minute. It has been pointed out to me that he actually said 75 businesses a second.

[Mr Speaker]

No, I think that the Minister said a business every 75 seconds.

[Mr Speaker]

It is not for the Speaker to be the arbiter of truth. Knowing the ambitions of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), it is important that he knows what he is letting himself in for. He would have important responsibilities, but the adjudication upon the matter of truth would not be one of them.

[Mr Sheerman]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

In deference to the seniority of the hon. Gentleman, I will hear his point of order if he insists.

[Mr Sheerman]

I just wanted to thank you for correcting the record, Mr Speaker. I would be glad if the record could be put straight. As you said, the figure was 75 businesses a second. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

I am getting advice that is the product of the scholarly cranium of the Clerk of the House, but I think I will leave the hon. Gentleman to find his own salvation. We will leave it there.

Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Austria) Order 2018

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 General Committees

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mel Stride)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Austria) Order 2018.

May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main? The order gives effect to a replacement double taxation agreement with Austria. DTAs remove barriers to international trade and investment, and provide a clear and fair framework for taxing businesses that trade across borders. By doing so, they benefit both businesses and the economies of the countries signed up to them.

Our current DTA with Austria dates from 1969 and is therefore in need of a comprehensive update to reflect changes to the OECD’s model tax convention and the domestic tax laws and treaty preferences of both states. The new DTA also introduces a number of improvements for businesses, individuals and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. The new agreement will first create certainty for businesses, boosting vital trade between our two countries. Cross-border dividends between group companies in the European Union are currently exempted from source state taxation under the EU’s parent-subsidiary directive. The new agreement ensures that UK businesses with subsidiaries in Austria will not be affected by the UK’s exit from the European Union.

Our current DTA permits Austria to tax dividends paid to UK residents at a rate of 5% for amounts paid in respect of direct investment, and 15% on portfolio holdings. The new DTA reduces the rate on direct holdings to zero, and that on portfolio holdings to 10%. At the same time, our right to tax distributions from UK real estate investment trusts at a rate of 15% is preserved. In addition, dividends received by UK pension schemes will be exempt from taxation in Austria. These reductions will ease the flow of cross-border investment between our two countries, to the benefit of both.

The new DTA also brings the mutual agreement procedure up to the minimum standard on improving dispute resolution agreed under the OECD-G20 base erosion and profit shifting—BEPS—project. In addition, the new agreement provides for mandatory binding arbitration, which will ensure that disputes are always resolved and that double taxation is avoided. Our current DTA with Austria was not listed as one that either state wished to be covered by the BEPS multilateral instrument—MLI—because this new agreement contains all of the provisions that would have been introduced by the MLI, taking into account the respective reservations made by the UK and Austria.

These provisions include the statement in the preamble that a purpose of a DTA is not to create opportunities for tax evasion and avoidance, and a principal purpose test that denies treaty benefits in cases of abuse. Together, these provisions ensure that the agreement complies with the BEPS minimum standard on preventing treaty abuse and supports this Government’s agenda of fair and transparent international tax standards. Other anti-avoidance rules in the new treaty include a tiebreaker provision for determining corporate residence, based on competent authority agreement.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister is gabbling through this at a rate of knots. I have had to come here at 6 o’clock on a Monday evening, when I should be somewhere else along the corridor. The impact assessment states that there will be no significant impact on businesses, charities or voluntary bodies. What the hell is this all for if there is no impact on anyone?

[Mel Stride]

Well, I am not sure that I would use quite the terminology that the hon. Gentleman has just introduced to the Committee. The purpose of any DTA is clearly to ensure that those entities that are trading across international boundaries do not suffer double taxation—so they are not taxed in both jurisdictions—and to ensure that trade is facilitated.

[Mr Sheerman]

Can the Minister explain to me why this relates only to Austria? I know of countries around the world where there are real concerns about double taxation, about people dodging tax and all those other things, but one country that would never enter my imagination when thinking about that is Austria.

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Gentleman might not be aware that we have double taxation agreements with a whole variety of countries. In fact, he has missed some of the best debates ever held in the House of Commons, because in this very Committee Room we have recently discussed DTAs with countries such as Lesotho—that was a fairly feisty debate between myself and the hon. Member for Oxford East. It is not a treaty in isolation, but one of many that we have entered into with other jurisdictions.

The provision in the capital gains article preserves UK taxing rights on gains from shares that derive their value from property in the United Kingdom. Finally, the new DTA provides for mutual assistance in the collection of tax debts. Together, those features strengthen both countries’ defences against tax avoidance and evasion.

In summary, the agreement protects UK revenue and provides a stable framework in which trade and investment between the UK and Austria can continue to flourish. I therefore commend the order to the Committee.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Chancellor does not like it when I use what he calls my “synthetic passion”, so, very quietly, may I beg him to take very seriously indeed where we are as a nation? It looks like we are heading for financial meltdown: people are losing their confidence in this country—[Interruption.] People are losing their confidence. My high street retailers—the big people and the small people—have their heads in their hands, and householders see a real likelihood of a 30% drop in their home value. Will he do something to stop this madness?

[Mr Hammond]

There are a couple of points there. First, I should just say to the hon. Gentleman that I was actually congratulating him the other day on his display of synthetic anger, which is one of the best in the House. On the wider point, the high street is facing challenges because of the uptake of online retailing across the UK at a faster rate than in any other large economy. That means that our high streets will have to adapt. The Government cannot save the high street from the need to change. What they can do is support it as it goes through that process of change.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I said in my Budget speech, after considering representations to scrap entrepreneur’s relief, I reached the conclusion that, unless we support entrepreneurs, we will not have a dynamic and vibrant economy that can support our first-class public services. Those two things go hand in hand.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is the Chancellor aware that the businesses and entrepreneurs I speak to look back fondly to the time of the global economic collapse—not a Labour recession, but a world economic collapse—when a man called Alistair Darling, who was a real Chancellor, led us through that crisis? [Interruption.] At a time when everyone is totally depressed about Brexit, our businesses and entrepreneurs want a real statesman and a real Chancellor to lead this country.

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman’s synthetic anger, which I have been enjoying for the best part of 20 years, is always a spectacle worth observing. I thank him for another episode. If he really thinks that businesses look back fondly to the financial crisis, he needs to get out a bit more.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 11th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

For the edification of those observing our proceedings, I can advise that the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) has just been chuntering at me that his grandmother had a link with the Mayflower, about which I think we are to be enlightened.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Some Members may think that I was on the Mayflower, although as a young man I did emigrate to the United States. Some of my ancestors, the Sheermans, could have been on the Mayflower—[Interruption.] Just hold it for a moment. This is the 400-year anniversary. Is it not time that we celebrated migration and the talent, the genius, the innovation and the ideas that we in this country and America get from migration? Should we not use this quadricentenary to celebrate migration across the world?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Gentleman is testing my knowledge of the pilgrim fathers, but of course they were inspired by William Bradford, who came from Yorkshire, I believe. He was the one who said that from small things great things can emerge, and that it takes just one small candle to light a thousand, which was the way that the whole pilgrim fathers’ enterprise was summed up. So I want to see the commemorations take place in Yorkshire, as well as in Plymouth and the rest of the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On his way to Chequers, will the Chancellor give a thought to health trusts such as Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust? It still cannot deliver the healthcare that my constituents and people in the rest of west Yorkshire want because of the PFI hanging around their necks. Will he do something about PFIs?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

I am afraid that I have to remind the hon. Gentleman that 86% of all PFI contracts currently in place in the NHS, draining money out of NHS trusts, were put in place by the previous Labour Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The national productivity investment fund is investing in all those areas. We have the biggest rail investment programme since Victorian times and the biggest road building programme since the 1970s, and we are investing in superfast broadband, which is critical to this country’s future. As my hon. Friend will know, in his area we are investing in the A21, and we are working with Network Rail on exploring options for connecting HS1 services to Hastings via Ashford International.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Surely the Chancellor knows that the thing holding back most businesses—small, medium-sized and large—is the lack of good skilled people to work for them. When is he going to give the Secretary of State for Education a good shaking and make him do something about the apprenticeship levy, apprenticeship schemes and the higher education graduate apprenticeship scheme?

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman is right that skills are a critical factor for business in an economy with such high levels of employment and low levels of unemployment as we have achieved. We are investing in apprenticeships with the new apprenticeship levy, providing funding for more and better apprenticeships; we are investing in T-levels, improving substantially the level of technical training for 16 to 19-year-olds; and we are reviewing the operation of tertiary education funding.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I quite agree: Stoke-on-Trent is exactly the kind of city that we designed the Transforming Cities fund to benefit. From the meeting we had, I know that my hon. Friend sees opportunity in Stoke—in Stoke station, at junction 15 on the M6 and in the proposal for a ceramics park. With the dynamic Conservative leadership in Stoke at the moment, we look forward to receiving that application.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I do not often get angry in the Chamber, but can I ask the Minister to stop spending his time in Maidenhead and Runnymede and come to the real towns and cities of this country like Huddersfield, where we can see the deterioration of infrastructure everywhere we look? That is because this Government have cut and cut local authority spending—that is the truth. He should get out more and see what this country is really like.

[Robert Jenrick]

The independent Infrastructure and Projects Authority has said that by the end of this Parliament, central Government funding for infrastructure will be greater in the north than in the south. The hon. Gentleman is speaking to the wrong Minister if he thinks that we do not care about the north. This son of a Liverpudlian and a Mancunian, born in Wolverhampton and representing North Nottinghamshire, needs no lessons from him.

[Mr Speaker]

I accept that Huddersfield is a most admirable place. My grandma lived there all her life, as I have told the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) before. Splendid place, splendid woman.

[Mr Sheerman]

And a good football team!

[Mr Speaker]

Indeed, that too.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend raises a critical point about the importance of getting the debt down to make sure that future generations do not carry the burden of it. That is why we have reduced the deficit by three quarters and why we are going to hit our reduction in the level of debt as a percentage of GDP two years early, in 2020-21.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) is a really eager young pup, and at this early point in his parliamentary career, I think we ought to hear the fella.

[Mr Sheerman]

Mr Speaker, you will know that I am not the most radical Member on the Labour Benches, but I want to tell the Minister that if the Government had been successfully reducing their budget, my constituents in Yorkshire could forgive her. The fact of the matter is that we have had the money for the electrification of the trans-Pennine railway stolen from us, and the Chancellor refuses to give it back. When will he make amends?

[Mel Stride]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, whether he is young or a puppy or whatever he may be, we are awaiting the business case for the trans-Pennine project, and when we receive it, we will look at it most closely.