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Former Chancellor Rishi Sunak or Foreign Secretary Liz Truss will fight out the final stages while the grass roots members of the Conservative party cast their votes.
While cost of living crisis and the state of the economy have dominated the headlines, self-employed and freelancer group, IPSE, has been scratching beneath the surface to examine where both candidates stand on matters relevant to the small business.
Rishi Sunak
The former Chancellor is no stranger to the self-employed sector. During the pandemic, he introduced the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme (SEISS), to help the self-employed during the difficult times, but attracted much criticism as it also let freelancers 'fall through the cracks'. Sunak also introduced the much-criticised reforms to IR35 in April last year.
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Writing in a blog, IPSE said: "While freelancers will hope that he changes his mind and overturns these taxes as well as IR35, it is unlikely that he will want to make U-turns on all of his previous positions. Instead, during the leadership campaign, Sunak has preached an end to economic fairytales - hinting that he would follow through on the same policies that he made as Chancellor.
"For the self-employed, a Sunak government would provide the sector with familiarity. He knows IPSE well – consulting closely with us during the pandemic - and he already has clear ideas on the future of the economy that could help him hit the ground running. While freelancers currently have a mixed view of his time as Chancellor, we believe that this doesn’t mean that he couldn’t be a success as Prime Minister."
Liz Truss
The current Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, has held a wide range of Cabinet and Ministerial posts during the past 12 years, including Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
Truss has emerged as 'the bookies' favourite' with a campaign about the need to cut taxes such as National Insurance and Corporation Tax. IPSE hopes that given her general attitude and rhetoric around tax, a Government led by Truss would look into IR35 and either reverse the flawed reform or commit to a review of the employment status of self-employed workers.
IPSE said: "We have worked closely with Truss in the past. In 2019, she spoke at a conference that we hosted with Demos and stated that Britain leads the world in self-employment and starting up businesses. Truss spoke clearly about the issues facing freelancers such as the gig economy and gave her solutions to helping the sector grow. We hope that as Prime Minister that she could build on this speech and put her thoughts into practice."
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The Editor
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