Earl of Kintore dies

The Earl of Kintore, one of the political champions of freelancers, died at his home recently.

The Aberdeenshire-based crossbench peer took up the cause of freelancers, particularly in the oil and gas sector, at the time of the introduction of IR35.

He was aware of the potential damage it could cause to the contracting sector in and around the North Sea. He attended many briefings and spoke at several conferences.

In 1999 when IR35 was going through Parliament, he was one of the main opponents of the Bill and spoke against the measure at the Report Stage of the Bill in the House of Lords.

Such was the strength of feeling in the Lords during that debate, that IR35 was voted out of the legislation, only for the Commons to reinsert it at a later stage.

Although convention dictated that the Lords would not overrule the Commons a second time, the Earl of Kintore continued to make the case for contractors, showing particular concern that IR35 would lead to a loss of skilled freelancers in Aberdeen.

He told the Lords: "At a meeting of about 240 professional contractors in Aberdeen in July, and a similar number in the Jubilee Room last Wednesday, there seemed to be feelings of anger and bewilderment: anger that running one's affairs through a long-established personal service company is now regarded almost as an illegal activity; and bewilderment that a perfectly sensible, popular, preferred, flexible, and in some cases necessary method of working as contractors is under attack.

"The aspect that alarms me most about the situation is that in order to catch a few wrongdoers there is ready acceptance that many perfectly legitimate contracting businesses will have to close down if they cannot change their method of working or absorb the competitive pressures from larger, favoured organisations.

"During my journey back to Scotland on Friday after our sadly curtailed Sitting, I read an article in the Evening Standard of which I should like to quote the first sentence: 'Shortly after becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown decided to find out why there are so few entrepreneurs in Britain'.

"I think I can now assist the right honourable gentleman. The threat of IR35 being enacted has already caused a trickle of entrepreneurs to go abroad. If the provision is enacted as Clause 70, there is a danger of the trickle becoming a flood. If the seven or eight contractors - young, smart, articulate and interested - who were listening to the debate with me in another place last Wednesday (Commons) are a representative sample of the group, we should be fighting tooth and nail to keep them in this country, and not treat them like unwanted raffle prizes. "

I met him on several occasions and he genuinely felt that, although he technically didn't have a constituency, someone had to speak up on behalf of the contractors in the Aberdeen area.