Contractors, ahead of general election 2024, will your constituency candidates sign the Loan Charge Pledge?

As contractors and other voters will have realised by now, this is no ordinary election. Whatever people’s views and affiliations, this is an election of change, when  - according to the pollsters – one out-of-favour government will be leaving office and another one will be coming in.  

As well as change, though, one of the underlying themes of General Election 2024 is anger. In 2019, it was frustration, but this time it is real anger at so much of what has happened over recent years. A small but important part of that anger stems from the tens of thousands of families affected by the ongoing Loan Charge scandal, writes Steve Packham, spokesperson for the Loan Charge Action Group. 

In 2024, the scandal of the Loan Charge finally hit mainstream TV news and began to enter the public consciousness.  

Anger

That’s partly due to the anger at the ongoing unfairness of a retrospective law and an approach deliberately targeting contract workers while the rest of the supply chain is ignored. And its anger at the brazen aggressiveness and cruelty of ministers and HMRC -- even when faced with suicides. It’s anger, too, at the fact that some seven years on from this controversial law being rushed through parliament without proper explanation or an honest impact statement, over 40,000 people’s lives are still on hold facing this whole nightmare.  

Furthermore, all of the above is even before you consider that many of the same people whose lives have been upended also lost work due to the utterly ill-considered ‘off-payroll working rules, and got excluded from support during the covid-19 pandemic.  

In an election of change, those 40,000 people – and those bullied and blackmailed into settling with HMRC on clearly unfair terms, plus those now still facing action for pre-Loan Charge years, are calling for change and for fairness.  

Encouraging signs

There are already some encouraging signs from the political parties vying for your vote.  

The Liberal Democrats (who now seem set to get back to the kind of representation seen under former esteemed party leaders Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy), have actually included stopping retrospective taxes -- such as the Loan Charge -- in their manifesto. The Lib Dems also want to reviewing IR35.  

In addition, Reform UK, clearly picking up votes since a change of leadership and challenging the Conservatives for the right of centre vote, have committed to getting rid of the IR35 rules which all but created the Loan Charge in the first place.  

Labour hasn’t directly addressed the Loan Charge. But they have committed to look at the rules around workers to stop bogus self-employment and ensure workers’ rights, which must surely also mean getting rid of ‘zero rights employment’, something many contractors and freelance workers have been pushed into by the HMRC-inpsired ‘off-payroll rules’ from the Conservatives. 

Reeves has already promised an independent Loan Charge review

Perhaps more importantly, earlier this year, the current shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, made an unequivocal commitment to commission a fresh, genuinely independent review of the Loan Charge live on LBC Radio. We wrote to Sir Keir Starmer at the start of this election campaign about this commitment, laying out what this review should consider for it to be effective.  

Loan Charge contractors have further grounds for optimism, as we do have the ongoing support of candidates from all parties, including some excellent Conservative MPs, who have had the courage to constantly oppose the Loan Charge and, in some cases, to be scathing about their own Treasury Ministers’ whole handling of the issue.  

We thank them and hope that their brave stand will be a factor in people deciding on who to vote for on July 4th 2024. As a campaign group for fairness on the Loan Charge, we want to see as many supportive MPs from across the political spectrum in the next parliament.  

In particular, we want to see Labour MPs ensuring that Rachel Reeves delivers the commitment to a fresh, genuinely independent Loan Charge review – and we also want to see good MPs on all sides of the House of Commons continuing the fight for a just resolution to the whole Loan Charge Scandal.  

The Loan Charge Pledge - and its three components

As a group representing people and families affected, the Loan Charge Action Group has launched The Loan Charge Pledge, with three simple but vital things that we are asking election candidates to support. The three are:  

1. A new genuinely independent review not influenced by the government or HMRC. The previous Treasury-commissioned review (The Morse Review) was not independent and came to a flawed conclusion. There have been several suicides since The Morse Review.  

2. A fair resolution for all those impacted, working with sector professionals, to bring an end to the whole scandal before more lives are ruined.  

3. A review of the rules around workers and the enshrining in law of the basic principle that anyone classified as a ‘worker’ (as opposed to being self-employed) must receive full employment rights (thereby stopping ‘zero rights employment’). This would help prevent another Loan Charge scandal from happening again.  

Contractors -- we urge you and everyone affected by retrospective taxation to contact the candidates standing in your constituency to ask them to commit to support these three things, The Loan Charge Pledge, if elected.  

At the time of writing, considering the extraordinary mess that HMRC is in; unable to cope with the volume of cases, with serious reputational damage and costs associated with what HMRC CEO Jim Harra called a “debacle”, these three things are hardly radical.  

Time for commonsense, following the recent nonsensical approach

The content of the pledge is now frankly commonsense, and it’s time for a new government following the nonsensical approach of the Rishi Sunak-led administration to resolve the Loan Charge scandal, fairly and without further suicides or lives ruined. We were delighted to recently see Labour candidates (who seem as good as certain to be returned as MPs), reiterating the current shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ clear commitment to a fresh, genuinely independent review of the Loan Charge. And to do so as a matter of priority.  

So general election 2024 must undoubtedly be an election of change and while the Loan Charge scandal is admittedly down the list of political issues, it is clear that the mess which is the status quo is unsustainable and that a resolution is vital.  

Resolution

The incoming government – and let’s face it, barring the political turnaround of turnarounds it will be a Sir Keir Starmer-led government – is about to have the Loan Charge Scandal on its desk. Simply continuing the utterly discredited way that the Tories, the government, ministers and HMRC have peddled dishonest propaganda and looked the other way won’t resolve the Loan Charge scandal, never mind resolve it for the 40,000 families facing this nightmare.  

So our message to everyone affected by the Loan Charge is to get your candidates signing the Loan Charge Pledge.  

Our message to all the MPs in the next parliament and the next government, is that it is time for a complete change of approach and you need to do your bit to make that happen. No more excuses, no more propaganda, no more suicides. Starting with the fresh, genuinely independent review promised by surely soon-to-be chancellor Rachel Reeves, it is time for a change of approach and a resolution to the whole sorry debacle of the Loan Charge scandal.