Business and Trade Committee
2 September 2025
No chapters available yet
Legend
Transcript markers
- text Sentence being played
- text Search result
- text Intervention cited by the link you opened
Click a sentence to play the video from that moment. Select text to quote it with the speaker, timestamp and link.
More options
Business and Trade Committee House of Commons
17:01 - 17:52
Speaker 1
Order, order. Welcome to today's session of the Business and Trade Committee as we commence our inquiry into small businesses. Thank you very much indeed for joining us. Alice Jeffries, I'm going to start with you, if I may. As we review the evidence in front of us, it looks like we now have widespread fraud that allows bad actors to undercut good businesses on the high street.
We've got much smaller discounts on business rates than were enjoyed by many retail and hospitality businesses two or three years ago. And we've got a corporation tax system, which frankly looks almost voluntary for many small businesses. So, could you just tell us, from your point of view, do you think we have a tax system for small businesses that is best for growth?
17:54 - 18:40
Speaker 2
I think there's a simple answer to that, which is no, but not necessarily for the reasons that you just outlined. Yes, we have a problem with some VAT fraud on high streets. I think the evidence that you heard from previous specialists to this committee, for example in the beauty industry, is not just fraud. There are also structures that you can use that are totally legitimate, like a sort of rent-a-chair in a hairdresser, which would reduce your VAT and make you more competitive. I think we need to think about why businesses might choose those routes. That's because they're scared of the level of admin they will have to do when they engage with HMRC for the first time. For a lot of them, that is something they are not prepared for, they're not educated for, and they don't get the help that they need from HMRC when they do engage. We...
18:40 - 18:55
Speaker 1
We know from HMRC that it's on the service standards for HMRC, but just focus your energies for a moment on the structure of business tax that we've got. Is it optimized for growth?
The rest of the transcript is for Pro customers
Unlock the full transcript, chat, and every analysis feature with Polyfact Pro.
The video itself stays free to watch, in full, no account needed.
Ask anything about this video — I analyse its transcript to answer.