IR35 letter to Economic Secretary to Treasury

Economic Secretary to the Treasury, John Healey, has invited freelancers with evidence of the adverse effects of IR35 to inform his Department.

The direct responsibility for this legislation lies with his colleague, Dawn Primarolo. However, when Mr Healey was questioned about IR35 at the Labour Small Business Forum/UKTECH fringe meeting at the recent Party Conference, he agreed that if evidence was available of detrimental or unintended consequences, they would consider it.

Full details of the meeting are available here:

Ministers hear from small business

UKTECH has sent the following letter to the Minister.

To Economic Secretary to the Treasury

Dear Mr Healey,

Thank you for speaking at the recent fringe meeting on small businesses organised by the Labour Small Business Forum and UKTECH at the Labour Party Conference in Bournemouth.

It was encouraging that it was so well attended and that two Ministers and the Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Small Business Group were able to address the meeting.

I think that the level of attendance indicates the interest of many people in the small business community in the political issues which affect their businesses on a daily basis.

I hope that you found it a worthwhile event and that we will be able to build on it in the future.

During the question and answer session, the subject of IR35 was raised. While you pointed out that this was not your direct Ministerial responsibility within the Treasury, you did indicate that your Department would look at any evidence of the problems IR35 may have caused for small businesses since it was introduced three years ago.

As you are aware, UKTECH is the UK's largest network of freelancers, many of whom have had personal experience of the difficulties of running a small business in the knowledge-based economy.

I will inform members of our network of your comments and will collate any contributions they may have, which I will then pass on to your Department.

I hope this will give you and your officials an insight into some of the difficulties this has caused for small business.

Thank you once again for participating in the fringe meeting.

Best wishes

Susie Hughes

Editor

UKTECH

If anyone wishes to contribute to this, I will collate comments posted here into a general submission to the Treasury.

Recently there has been a lengthy thread on UKTECH about how freelancers can get their message across. Given there has been a direct - and public - invitation from a Treasury Minister, here is one opportunity.

My impression is that within Government in general and the Treasury in particular, there is a general lack of belief that IR35 has caused any problems for 'real businesses'.

Evidence of the personal experience of those 'real businesses' would go some way to refute this and explain the situation.