Action call: Your chance to push for rethink on IR591

Shadow Paymaster General, Mark Prisk MP, is asking all MPs to support his call to ask the Chancellor to consult small business groups about IR591, the as yet unknown proposal to ensure freelancers and small businesses 'pay the right amount of tax'. Has your MP signed yet and represented your views?

Mark Prisk has used a Parliamentary device Early Day Motion (number 501) to try to increase the pressure on the Chancellor to rethink. It is important that Mark, himself a former freelancer, commands a large number of signatures from MPs of all parties in order to be able to challenge Ministers on the subject.

Mark told UKTECH: "I am determined that the Government understands how concerned the business community is about this issue."

Sign up

He is asking MPs to sign up to the following:

"This House notes the Government's plans to reverse its tax treatment of owner managed businesses; is deeply concerned that this could result in severe financial hardship for thousands of family businesses and thus damage enterprise; asks the Chancellor to explain why his tax incentives went wrong; and urges him to meet with and consult small business representatives prior to the Budget.

What can you do?

If you support Mark Prisk's motion, then you can encourage your MP to add his or her name to the list. The larger the number of signatures from MPs of all Parties, the greater influence it will have.

If you agree, contact your MP and ask if he or she has signed it; will they sign it; and if not, why not.

It doesn't take many letters from constituents to begin to bring pressure to bear on local MPs.

You can write to your MP at the House of Commons, Westminster, London SW1A 1AA or send a fax through this link (typing your postcode will identify your constituency MP):

Please post below if you succeed in persuading your MP - or if you don't. UKTECH will follow this closely and publish lists of who has signed.

Early Day Motions

The tabling of an Early Day Motion or EDM is a device to draw attention to an issue and to elicit support for it by inviting other MPs to add their signatures. MPs can also table amendments to existing EDMs.

EDMs, amendments and names of signatories are circulated in the Vote Bundle, the daily working papers of the House of Commons. Although they don't necessarily lead to a debate, they can often attract a great deal of publicity, and many people regard them as a gauge of opinion.

Although some motions are Party political, they are often drafted in such a way that members of other Parties feel able to sign - as is this case. In fact one of the first signatures of support was from Kerry Pollard MP, chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Small Business Group and a Labour MP.