In spite of the current Covid-19 crisis and restrictions on attendance in the House of Commons, dozens of MPs still attended the debate on a motion put forward by David Davis, Ruth Cadbury (a Co-Chair of the Loan Charge APPG) and Dr. Julian Lewis and supported by the Loan Charge APPG – which the three are all members of.
The Loan Charge APPG has recently published a report exposing that the Treasury-commissioned Morse Review came to a flawed and unjustified conclusion.
The debate motion was passed unanimously and it was resolved:
That this House believes that the Loan Charge is an unjust and retrospective tax; notes that the law on the Loan Charge was not settled until 2017, and calls on HMRC to cease action on loans paid before 2017.
The motion expresses the will of the House of Commons and doesn’t force the Government to act, but with such strong cross-party opposition to the retrospective nature of the Loan Charge, the pressure is increasing on the Government to go further than they currently plan to, when they amend the Loan Charge in the forthcoming Finance Bill.
Mr. Blunt said that whilst he was regrettably unable to attend the debate at the last minute due to corona risk management, he was delighted that over twenty of his colleagues spoke in support of the motion calling for retrospection to be removed. He continues to commend the efforts of the APPG which he wholly supports, pressing on the Government to seek a fair resolution for all those significantly impacted.