Reader asks Graham Stringer where his socialist principles went
Sir
Where did you lose your Socialist principles Graham? Surely not on Manchester council.
The simple reality of IR35 is in an effort to try to deal with the alleged (though non-existent) bunch of contractors who leave full-time work on a Friday and return on a Monday, New Labour has created an underclass of new (though skilled and mobile) technically skilled workers.
The Inland Revenue tries to define contractors as full-time employees of their clients.
The Department of Education and Employment doesn't recognise that definition, which is why FI Group nearly got away with their "identify a British contractor who can be replaced by a cheap immigrant". Strangely enough, the Inland Revenue's definition of contractors as being employees of their clients doesn't extend to their vulnerability to being replaced by a cheap immigrant through the fast-track immigration scheme.
So if for tax purposes IT contractors are defined as full-time employees of their clients (including of course the small businesses who compete with the likes of EDS and Andersens) what do they get to equate with their full-time counterparts?
* Holiday pay?
Nope.
* Sickness pay?
Nope
* Free training?
Nope
* Legal protection for redundancy, or recourse to industrial tribunals?
Nope
* Union membership?
Nope
* Employee pension, with company contribution?
Nope
* Company car?
Nope
* Company health cover?
Nope
* Welfare if made redundant?
Nope because, conveniently, being a Director of his own Company, he can't be rendered by the same company the Inland Revenue reckon he/she works for. How convenient.
In fact, if said "disguised" employee wants those things, he can pay for them himself, out of his invoices his company generate. Oh yeah, plus the employer's National Insurance (hang on, I thought he was defined as an employee of his client!)
Regrettably it would appear that you Sir have been positioned as the "apologist" for IR35. But to that end Sir, you are attempting to defend the indefensible. IR35 should never have been a New Labour policy, the Inland Revenue simply required a new Government, naive after eighteen years out of power to implement a policy that had been kicking around since the '80's.
If the desire is to create a new definition of underclass worker; defined by being British and skilled, then New Labour is well on course for succeeding. My memory serves me quite well; Labour was responsible for the first wave of technical staff to leave our shores in the late 1960's and 70's (mainly for the US) and combined with Thatcher's assault on manufacturing through the '80's managed to leave our nation a pale shadow of what it was previously. Other than with the possible exception of Zimbabwe, there is no government on this planet so determined to damage its economy in the early years of the 21st century than that of the government determined to impose such an assault on its own people.
Let me at least believe that IR35 is a simple mistake, that upon reflection will be corrected (or amended) sufficiently to satisfy all parties. Please let me think that the person who leads New Labour out of the dark pit that is IR35 will be the same person whose credentials were previously proven in making Manchester Airport the world's best airport.