If that suggestion came from the Government side, I would say that I would listen to the representations, and we would listen to any representations, so to speak, that would help small businesses.
Moving on to alcohol duty, the Finance Bill will only further undermine our local pubs, which are already under threat, with 29 pubs closing every week. While we welcome plans to make tax digital, the Government’s plan will shift huge administrative burdens on to small businesses and the self-employed, who are just trying to pay the taxes they owe—so much for the Conservatives being the party of small business. There is no reason businesses should have to submit quarterly digital tax returns, particularly when they lack the time, resources and capacity to convert records into digital standards on a frequent basis. All that comes when they are under stress from business rates. That is why we support the view of the Treasury Committee and of small business owners and the self-employed that it is better to exempt the smallest taxpayers from quarterly reporting and to phase in making tax digital to ensure that implementation is right for all, rather than the Conservative party wasting taxpayers’ money and time by correcting mistakes further down the line.
Making tax digital will also place new burdens on HMRC, which is already teetering on the edge after the constant slashing of its resources over the past few years. Thousands of hard-working staff have already been dismissed, and taxpayers are waiting on the phone for hours, which costs far more than the cuts have saved. The closure of dozens of tax offices across the country is still to come, putting thousands of jobs at risk in my constituency alone. How will HMRC cope with the ever-increasing complexity of its responsibilities with just a skeleton staff? How will any of the “reduction in errors” expected from making tax digital actually come about? How will we ever close the tax gap when there are no tax inspectors left to help taxpayers get their returns right and when HMRC has been filched of the resources it needs to run a service? It is a total false economy.