I rise to speak to amendment 180 and new clause 1, and to indicate our support for the Opposition on amendment 2. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris) gave his reasoning behind amendment 2 with such typical eloquence that I have nothing of any substance to add to his remarks, other than to say that we will support the amendment when it is pressed to a vote.
Earlier, I raised a point of order with the Speaker, who encouraged me to say a few words at the beginning of my speech in this debate, so I hope you will indulge me, Sir Roger. We have just had an extraordinary and historic statement from the Prime Minister, in terms of the economy and Government finances, that served merely to clarify the fact that there is no clarity. We know that we face great challenges that will be relevant to much of the Bill, yet we do not know the detail of what the Treasury and its Ministers plan to do or how their actions are likely to affect the measures in the Bill.
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I am particularly concerned about how some of these provisions will affect small business people in my constituency and other small businesses, in different legal guises, throughout the whole of the UK. At Prime Minister’s questions just before the referendum, I raised the case of two of my constituents who ran small businesses, Thomas and Elke Westen, who are of German descent. They have now left the country, such were their feelings about the way in which the immigration debate had been handled. They had been hoping to build their businesses and to engage in share ownership schemes, and I know that at least one of them had been engaged as an intermediary and would therefore have been affected by this Bill. So although my remarks tonight on the amendment and the new clause could apply to many people, I have a particular concern about those people in our society who want their small businesses to contribute to productivity but who are feeling disadvantaged because of the wider ramifications of Brexit.
Amendment 180 deals with the impact of HMRC’s abandonment of its valuation check services for small and medium-sized enterprises. I am aware of the Minister’s earlier words of comfort and his opinion that this was not a matter of great significance because the service was poorly used. He suggested that it was of little consequence that it had been abandoned by HMRC in the past few weeks.