Lord Freyberg (CB)

My Lords, I support Amendment 35 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, which would require the Government to commission an independent review within 12 months of passing the Act, covering a comprehensive range of impacts. Among the items it would have to consider are, explicitly, “workers with multiple jobs”, and “workers who change jobs during any tax year and have made pension salary sacrificed contributions”. Those two categories define the working life of a freelance creative. The Government’s answer throughout the Bill has been that these questions will be resolved in regulations. Amendment 35 would at a minimum ensure that Parliament sees independent evidence of whether that resolution has worked in practice. Amendment 40, also in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, would go further and make commencement conditional on a review of the Act’s practical feasibility. Given the complexity we have heard about and that I have described for workers with mixed employment statuses, including those engaged by the BBC under off-payroll rules while simultaneously working for other employers, that is not an excessive precaution. Therefore, I support both these amendments.