National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill

Third Reading

15:47:00

Moved by

That the Bill be now read a third time. Clause 1: Rate of secondary Class 1 contributions Amendment 1

Moved by

1: Clause 1, page 1, leave out line 13 and insert— “(aa) a person providing a service who is regulated under section 47(1)(a) or 47(1)(b) of the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010,”

My Lords, I beg to move the amendment standing in my name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead. In my speech on Report on an amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Barker, I expressed support for the amendment but flagged up that I had only recently been alerted to the possible glitch in it as it related to Scotland. Specifically, the difficulty stems from the fact that the term “domiciliary support service” is not defined in Scottish legislation, and therefore the provisions of the amendment would not apply to parallel services in Scotland. I flagged that up and that I might seek to address this at Third Reading. I must confess that it was not easy to find wording that met the tidying-up criteria stipulated for Third Reading amendments. Some possible wording could well have extended the services in Scotland beyond those in the other parts of the United Kingdom. I am very grateful to Rachel Cackett and Chris Small from the Coalition for Care and Support Providers in Scotland for their help in trying to address this issue and to the Public Bill Office, especially Donna Davidson, for assistance in framing an amendment which satisfied the tidying-up rule. This is a modest amendment. It is intended to achieve consistency of treatment for certain care providers right across the United Kingdom. I hope my comments will commend themselves to my noble friend Lady Kramer, whose name is on the first amendment, and I hope the Minister can accept this tidying-up provision. I acknowledge that it would be without prejudice to how the Government intend to proceed in the other place with this clause as amended, but at least it would mean that it went to the other place with a degree of consistency across these islands. Before I sit down, I apologise that, in my contribution on Report, I inadvertently said that CrossReach, the social care arm of the Church of Scotland, employed 16,000 people whereas it is 1,600. When I got my handwritten notes back from Hansard, I noted that I had actually written down the correct figure, so my error was either due to my handwriting or my eyesight. I have corrected that in the Official Report. I beg to move.

My Lords, I am afraid that I regard this amendment, although obviously achieving consistency with treatment in Scotland as well as in the rest of the United Kingdom, as just another of the irresponsible measures we have seen from Opposition Benches. One will have noticed very clearly that there are no proposals whatever on how the expenditure should be funded. As a way of managing public expenditure, this is not the way to do it. Public expenditure should be taken seriously as a means of deciding the structure, composition and scale of expenditure. Simply scattering money by proposing amendments such as this to the national insurance Bill is not a responsible way of going about this fiscal process.

My Lords, it seems to have fallen to me to again follow the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, and it falls to me to again disagree with his comments. I am delighted to support this amendment from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, which I see as just being a fair and administrative tidying up to ensure that, in whatever state the Bill ends up as it goes through our House and the other place, it treats all services across the United Kingdom as fairly as possible. I cannot believe that noble Lords opposite would wish there to be a gaping hole in what applies to Scotland compared with what might apply to the rest of the United Kingdom. Given that the amendment from the noble Baronesses, Lady Kramer and Lady Barker, was passed by your Lordships’ House with a majority of 130, the sentiment of this place is clear. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, has done a lot of background work to try to get the wording within the specifics of a Third Reading amendment. The Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 is not a simple and clear definition, but we are trying to ensure that support services are included in Scotland as well as England. Therefore, it is my great pleasure to support this amendment and I hope that the Government will ensure there is parity across the UK for the Bill.

My Lords, I added my name to this amendment for the reasons the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, has given. It is, obviously, quite important to bring the Scottish position into line with the rest of the United Kingdom. It also gives me an opportunity to make two points that I ask the Minister to bear in mind. The first is the extent to which the public services in Scotland are dependent on the third sector. They depend to a major extent on the work done by charities and other third sector organisations. There is, of course, an imbalance between the way in which public sectors react to the changes in the Bill and the third sector is left with very little support at the moment to enable it to do that. Perhaps the Minister might bear in mind, as time goes on, that it is necessary to keep an eye on the extent to which the Bill has that deleterious effect. There are other ways—I know the Minister understands this—in which these bodies can be assisted. It may be, if the position is as people are saying and they will be so disadvantaged, that the Government might be able to support them in some way to enable them to continue to provide their vital support. In the end, the people who suffer are not those who provide the services but those for whom the services are provided, for which the public services in Scotland are not fully equipped.

My Lords, let me say to the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, that I take full responsibility for the misdrafting of the original amendment, and for not being sensitive to the legal differences between Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom. I thank my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness and the others who have supported him, and those in Scotland who were so concerned about what might happen to the care services there that they wanted to make sure that the language was reasonably perfected. I am delighted to accept that amendment, but I am also very grateful that people came forward. It is good to know that we are sending something to the other place that is not holed beneath the waterline; I appreciate that. I also appreciate the vote that came in this House, which is not disrupted at all by this amendment, as people were very clear that they intended it to apply to Scotland as well as to the rest of the United Kingdom. I hope that I will be in a position to thank the Government for accepting this tidying-up amendment, understanding the spirit both in which it was offered and in which the previous debate took place.

I want to raise an objection to the earlier remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, which accused us of making amendments to spray public funding around. We made a number of suggestions as to how government could raise revenue in other ways, and government does flex itself, as we have seen in the increasing defence expenditure and reduction in overseas aid, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do outside of a Budget. When the chief executive of a hospice says publicly that, as a result of this legislation, people may die in greater pain and agony than would otherwise be the case, I think it is perfectly reasonable for this to be drawn to your Lordships’ attention and for amendments to be discussed.

My Lords, I am concluding for the Opposition on this amendment. We are content with the amendment, which we see as a technical, tidying-up amendment.

My Lords, the amendment tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, seeks to make a minor adjustment to the Bill to more accurately define care workers in Scotland. While the amendment does not change the fundamental principles or objectives of the Bill, it enhances the clarity and precision of the text. I am therefore happy to accept this amendment.

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords and noble Baronesses who have participated in this debate. In particular, I thank my noble friend Lady Kramer for accepting the spirit of the amendment to what was originally her and my noble friend Lady Barker’s amendment. I also thank the Minister for the spirit in which he has accepted the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, has been very consistent; he said much the same last week. The noble Lord, Lord Leigh, as well as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, made the point that, if the increase in national insurance contributions from bodies in the charitable sector should lead to diminution of services, it will be the people in receipt of the services who will suffer. That, in turn, could put a burden on government, possibly greater than the cost of being consistent with this amendment. With that, and with thanks also to the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, I am pleased to move this amendment.

Amendment 1 agreed.

15:58:00

Motion

Moved by

That the Bill do now pass.

My Lords, it was this Government’s duty in October last year to repair the public finances and rebuild the public services. We did so in the fairest way possible, by keeping our promises to working people not to increase their national insurance, VAT or income tax. The Government did, however, need to take some very difficult decisions, including some of the measures contained in this Bill. As a result of those decisions, we have now wiped the slate clean, creating a platform of stability and enabling us to make significant additional investment in the NHS. I thank all noble Lords who have given their time and expertise to scrutinise the Bill during its passage through your Lordships’ House. Specifically, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lady Kramer, for their constructive engagement and scrutiny. While I acknowledge the commitment of your Lordships’ House to the scrutiny of the Bill, the Government have not found themselves in agreement with the amendments proposed. We believe that the Bill in its original form provides the right way in difficult circumstances of raising the revenue needed to repair the public finances and rebuild public services. I thank my noble friends Lord Eatwell and Lord Chandos for their supportive contributions and thank my officials who worked hard to bring this Bill before your Lordships’ House, including Joe Oakes, Isabelle Urban, Alex Nevitte, Henry Lodge, Hannah Bewley and Will Smith. I beg to move.

I am sorry to disrupt the House, but it is common to use do now pass to say thank you and I certainly have thank yous to say. I thank the House for passing a number of amendments that will substantially reduce the damage and harm being done by this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Londesborough, took the lead on small businesses, the Conservative Benches took the lead on charities and transport for special needs children, and my own party took the lead on community health and social care. Those are all exceedingly important and I hope the Government will take the issues very seriously. I do not think we have ever heard better debates, frankly, than those in this House that talked about real-life experience to convey the significance of the impact of the original Bill. I thank the Minister. He and his team were unable to give us any concessions but they said no in the nicest of ways. I thank all the other Benches. We worked closely together—Cross Benches, Conservatives and our party—because we all felt in an almost non-political way that it was really necessary to try to come to the rescue of the damage that we could see was going to occur. There is one amendment that I did not mention and which I think is important because it may survive some of this process and that is from the Conservatives on an impact assessment. That is becoming a recognised vehicle for important assessment of Bills such as this and has historically not been adequate. Perhaps we could now change that for the future. Lastly, I thank my own Benches. I thank my noble friends Lady Barker and Lord Scriven and the others who led on various areas within this. I also thank Elizabeth Plummer of our Whips’ Office who did so much of the heavy lifting. She will have my eternal thanks. It is so good to have somebody covering one’s back when trying to deal with complex issues. I thank the House in general for taking this issue so seriously and recognising its significance to so many people.

I too have some thanks to give. I thank all noble Lords from across the House who voted for my exemption amendment on the 45% reduction in Clause 2’s secondary threshold for all organisations employing fewer than 25 staff. I particularly thank my supporters, the noble Baronesses, Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lady Kramer. I was delighted to have the support of both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats and, indeed, the majority of Cross-Benchers who were able to vote at that late hour. I also thank the Public Bill Office for helping to draft an amendment that turned out to require five consequential amendments, the staff of the Whips’ Offices, and the Minister for at least listening and for his patient approach. I appreciate that he has a lot on his plate, but I hope that he and the Treasury appreciate that my amendment sits right behind their number one priority, which is to generate sustainable economic growth. That is why I tabled the amendment and I trust it will be given the full consideration and scrutiny it merits.

My Lords, in concluding for the Opposition, I thank the many Peers on my Benches who have made valuable contributions during the Bill’s passage. I cannot thank them all today as the list is too long but I thank particularly my noble friend Lord Altrincham—my comrade in arms—and our opposition research team. I also thank noble Lords from across the House, because this has been a cross-party effort, reflecting the widespread damage this Bill will cause. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Londesborough, for his amendments to protect small business, the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, for her amendments on health and social care, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, for her support across the board, including for the amendment calling for a review of the impact of the Bill. I will say a couple of things. We have consistently heard that this is a job tax, plain and simple. It is the most important economic measure the Government have introduced so far, and it will have wide-reaching damaging impacts across the whole economy. It is being brought in on a tight timescale, creating a cliff edge on 6 April with no staggering for those who may be hurt. It has not been accompanied by an adequate impact note. It has led to businesses losing confidence in the Government, and that, I believe, is very bad for growth, of which I am very supportive. Despite the Minister’s protests, Peers from all Benches have agreed that the short document the Government call an impact note is an affront to the House, and that the Government have failed to provide sufficient sectoral information to allow for the effective scrutiny we try to bring. That is why we must have the review of the impact on affected sectors. Despite the importance of these measures, the Government have made no effort to engage constructively. This House therefore voted to exempt small charities, transport providers for children with special educational needs and disabilities, early years providers and, as I have already said, small businesses and health and social care providers that provide public services in the private sector. Of course we understand that taxes should be simple, as the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, has explained, but when the Government fail to recognise the egregious impact this Bill will have on real people, we believe that some rethinking is necessary. Some of our changes would be modest in cost terms, but I know they would earn the thanks of many right across society. I end by encouraging the noble Lord to use all his charms to persuade the Chancellor to think again.

My Lords, I once again thank all noble Lords for their efforts on this Bill. I beg to move.

Bill passed and returned to the Commons with amendments.