Finance Bill

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Wednesday 10th January 2024 Commons Chamber

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

With this it will be convenient to consider the following:

Clause 2 stand part.

Schedule 1.

New clause 1—Review of reliefs for research and development—

“(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must, within three months of this Act being passed, publish a review of the implementation costs of the measures in section 2 incurred by—

(a) HMRC, and

(b) businesses.

(2) The review under subsection (1) must include details of the implementation costs of all measures related to credit or relief for research and development that have been introduced since December 2019.”

This new clause would require the Chancellor to publish a review setting out the total implementation costs of all changes to research and development reliefs in the current Parliament.

New clause 3—Assessment of impact of Act on business investment and economic growth—

“Within six months of the passage of this Act, the Chancellor of the Exchequer must carry out an assessment of the impact of section 2 and Schedule 1 of this Act on business investment and economic growth, and lay a report of that assessment before both Houses of Parliament.”

This new clause would require the government to produce an assessment of the impact of the Bill’s new regime for research and development carried out by companies. This assessment would need to examine the impact on business investment and economic growth.

--- Later in debate ---

I have no doubt that the measures announced in the Bill will be the ignition that accelerates the UK’s economy and leads us to a brighter future. I will support the Bill throughout today.

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

I am only going to make some brief remarks on the two clauses. The UK Government are clearly scrambling to fix an economic mess of their own making, and the Bill is full of such measures.

On clause 1, during the autumn statement I welcomed this move, but it does little to deal with the damage to business that has been caused by the big grey elephant in the room that none of the parties wishes to mention, which is Brexit. Far from the ideal of removing red tape and decreasing bureaucracy, as we have heard thrown about in this Chamber, it has actually led to more red tape and more difficulties for business. This is just one of the measures the Government should be taking, among many others they must consider in future. I hope to come to those later in the debate.

The “years of uncertainty” that the hon. Member for Ealing North (James Murray) mentioned have indeed been years of uncertainty caused by this Government, but they have definitely been impacted by the Brexit that Labour now supports, along with the Liberal Democrats. People are struggling with a cost of living crisis, and it is affecting domestic sales too, so they need other fixes. Again, I will have some questions about that later.

Clause 2 and schedule 1—I hope this will be helpful for the Minister—are like trying to make a jigsaw puzzle with no box, no picture and just some random bits and pieces to try to plug together to make something out of. Productivity does not work without the skills required in research and development. We do not get the advance or the boost we need without that and, once again, the spectre of Brexit means that we have a skills shortage across the nations of the UK. That is particularly affecting Scotland, which needs its own immigration rules. It is something we would ask to have powers over, short of our call—it would of course be the absolute best result—for Scotland to have independence so it can make these decisions itself.