FEATURE: BUSINESS TRAVEL


conference on high speed rail organised by Birmingham solicitors Pinsent Masons. Partner, Patrick Twist said the event looked at high speed rail not just in Britain but in the global context.


He said: “High speed rail has


become a hot topic in the UK as the government decides whether to go ahead with HS2, a new rail line from Birmingham to London and later to Leeds and Manchester. The proposal has proved controversial and has provoked opposition from communities affected by where the line will run.”


Event explores HS2 benefits K


aren Lumley, MP for Redditch County, gave the keynote address at a


Left to right: Karen Lumley MP, Patrick Twist (Partner Pinsent Masons), Bill Pryke (CEO The Chartered Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors) and Professor Andrew McNaughton


‘There was a good precedent for HS2 in the Frankfurt to Cologne line, a distance very similar to Birmingham to London.’


Ms Lumley, a strong advocate of HS2, said it would bring some of the economic growth that the South East has seen in recent years to the Midlands and help to bridge the North South divide. Chief engineer of High Speed 2 Limited, Professor


Andrew McNaughton, the principal speaker at the conference, said other countries had been developing


high speed rail for many years. He said: “Japan had its first line in 1964, three years before British Rail phased out steam trains. “There is a good precedent for HS2 in the Frankfurt to


Cologne line, a distance very similar to Birmingham to London.” He drew attention to the immense increase in rail


traffic in England in recent years and the need to provide additional capacity by early in the next decade. He said that focusing on speed is misleading. “The


essence of high speed rail is moving very large numbers of passengers on dedicated lines between large centres of population. The latest high speed trains carry the equivalent of two jumbo jets right into the heart of city destinations."


HMRC has company van drivers in it sight


Dains, Midlands based chartered accountants and business advisers, is warning that HMRC is increasing its monitoring of the use of company vans amid concerns that insufficient tax and NI contributions are being collected. When a company van is used for


private journeys, it creates a benefit in kind charge of £3,000 per annum. However, HMRC is concerned that the rules regarding vans are not as strict as those for cars, particularly as private use of vans can be considered ‘insignificant’ and therefore tax-free.


Birmingham jams ranked seventh


Birmingham is the seventh most traffic clogged city in the UK, beaten by London to top place followed in order by Edinburgh, Oxford, Belfast, Bradford and Manchester. New figures released by TomTom


measured the top 50 most congested areas across Britain in the past six months. Roads are considered congested when peak time traffic is 70 per cent slower than that at off-peak times. All UK towns and cities with over 50,000 inhabitants were analysed. Road congestion is estimated to


cost the UK economy £20 billion a year in lost production. TomTom International Traffic Foundation, the not-for-profit organisation is to bring together key stakeholders from academia, industry and policy- making to collaborate to reduce traffic congestion. It will fund PhD and post-doctorate research, publish research papers and host traffic management seminars. It is estimated that a reduction of


just five per cent in travel time for all business travel on the roads could generate around £2.5 billion of cost savings, by reducing missed appointments and speeding up delivery times.


Andy McQuillan Andy McQuillan, tax partner at Dains said: “The legislation states that


there is a nil benefit in kind charge if the employer prohibits private use other than for the purposes of commuting or if the use of the van is truly ‘insignificant’. There is no definition of ‘insignificant’, but it can broadly be described as ‘ad hoc’. For example, making a slight detour to pick up a newspaper could be described as such, but doing the weekly shopping or going on holiday in the van could not.” HMRC has now issued questionnaires to a number of employers


concerning all aspects of company van use, asking questions such as whether the employer has a van policy or whether mileage tracker devices are fitted.


If HMRC discovers that there is more than insignificant private use, it is


likely to try to collect tax and NI contributions for earlier tax years as well as the current one.


NOVEMBER 2011 CHAMBERLINK 45


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