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(1) Clauses 2, 28 and 99 be committed to a Committee of the whole House;
(2) the remainder of the Bill be committed to a Standing Committee;
(3) when the provisions of the Bill considered, respectively, by the Committee of the whole House and by the Standing Committee have been reported to the House, the Bill be proceeded with as if the Bill had been reported as a whole to the House from the Standing Committee.--[Mrs. Roche.]
11.25 pm
Mr. Nick St. Aubyn (Guildford): I am sure that Iam not the only Member who believes that careful consideration should be given to the motion concerning the clauses to be debated on the Floor of the House before the Bill goes into Standing Committee. I welcome the fact that on the Floor of the House we will debate the petrol duty, the loss of the married couples allowance and the unwise proposal, in the view of many people outside the House, yet again to increase stamp duty.
I suggest that we should consider other measures to be debated on the Floor. Although this is not as long a Finance Bill as the one that we had to suffer last year, it is wide-ranging and covers matters that may not be as well addressed and publicised in Standing Committee, where not as many hon. Members will be able to contribute as would be possible on the Floor of the House.
For example, I could have referred to clause 53, which deals with employees who work in education and training. I am sure that many hon. Members want to speak about that, but I know that the time on the Floor of the House is limited. I could have suggested that we consider the clauses relating to student loans and to the enterprise investment scheme.
However, there are two clauses that it will not be possible to debate under the terms of the motion and deserve proper consideration by the entire House. I refer, first, to clause 121, which relates to
I am grateful to the Inland Revenue for providing such a clear note in the guidance on clauses. It states that the clause
The note goes on to state:
If we are to have a debate about economic and monetary union and whether the Inland Revenue should be spending money on it, we should also consider whether we should approve clause 59. Clauses 59 and 50 relate to investments and securities, and concern tax avoidance in that context. As we all know, the Government are under great pressure--in connection with a wholly misguided system of tax avoidance--to attack, in effect, investments and securities held through the Eurobond market. A debate on the Floor of the House on those clauses, and on amendments tabled by my hon. Friends and me, would give us an opportunity to prevent the Government from entering into any arrangement with other members of the European Union that might introduce a withholding tax on such securities and investments.
Only today, representatives of the Swiss Government and Swiss monetary authorities visited London. They have a clear message to deliver about withholding tax on investments and securities. The message--to London, to the Government in particular and to the European Union--is that such a tax cannot work; but we have not debated the matter since it was last raised, over the weekend during a meeting of the European Union Finance Ministers. We need such a debate on the Floor of the House. Not just thousands but tens of thousands of jobs will be at risk if the Government give in to pressure from Germany and other members of the European Union. That is simply not acceptable--and we are talking not just
about thousands, or tens of thousands, of jobs in London; in constituencies such as mine, job losses will result if the matter is allowed--
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord):
Order. The hon. Gentleman is now starting to go into the details of a debate that will, in fact, take place in Committee. I should be grateful if he would stick to the point.
Mr. St. Aubyn:
Thank you for helping me to stick to the matter with which we are dealing, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Nevertheless, if we are to consider these clauses, we must consider what is to be the range of the debate about them.
The clauses relating to the bonds that I mentioned, involving tax avoidance, raise many other issues. It is in the spirit of the Bill to crack down on tax avoidance, and there is no desire on my part--or, I believe, on that of any other Conservative Member--to allow people to get away with it; but we question the methods proposed in the Bill.
In dealing only with clauses 2, 28 and 99--which, as I have said, concern petrol duty, the married couples allowance and stamp duty--we are not dealing with all aspects of those matters. For instance, it may not be within the ambit of the debate on clause 99 for us to consider a different level of stamp duty for different types of property. If we debated more clauses on the Floor of the House, we could consider that here rather than in Committee.
If the debate on clause 121 went its way, I would hope that we could discuss the enterprise investment scheme. The Government are now trying to go halfway towards correcting the problems that they created before, while leaving many people who invested in small businesses far worse off than they were before the Finance Act 1998. I believe that the clauses relating to that scheme would also benefit from being discussed on the Floor of the House.
Finally, there are the clauses relating to value added tax. Given the terms on which the Bill is referred to a Standing Committee, it will not be possible to debate VAT matters. A matter that we tried to debate last year relates to the art market in this country, which is threatened by a serious increase in VAT. Unless we are allowed to debate the VAT clauses on the Floor of the House, it may not be possible for us to raise an important issue that may threaten as many as 5,000 jobs in London alone if no action is taken in the next few months to prevent the increase in VAT on art sales in this country that is in the pipeline.
Mr. Allan Rogers (Rhondda):
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it proper for an hon. Member to talk about an issue when he has not declared an interest? I understand that the family of the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) owns St. Michael's mount, the castle and the paintings in it. Now he has advocated--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. Hon. Members should not make such complaints across the Floor of the House. If any Members have an interest to declare, I have no doubt that they will do so. If the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) has any complaints, he should pursue them through the normal channels.
Mr. St. Aubyn:
My family has no plans to sell any works of art; besides, the property mentioned by the
The art market affects many Members of this House--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. The hon. Gentleman has had his time.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mrs. Barbara Roche):
I am astonished at the performance of the hon. Member for Guildford(Mr. St. Aubyn). I was going to say that perhaps he did not realise that the clauses that will be discussed on the Floor of the House were requested by his own Front Benchers, but the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing)--who is about to leave the Chamber and who is, I understand, a member of the Opposition Whips' Office--was encouraging him.
Mrs. Roche:
Please sit down. We heard from the hon. Gentleman for long enough.
I assume that Conservative Front Benchers knew about that arrangement, which suggests how they intend to conduct proceedings. The hon. Member for Guildford could have made those points during today's proceedings; he chose not to.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
The Question is as that on the Order Paper. As many as are of that opinion say, "Aye". [Hon. Members: "Aye.] The hon. Member for Guildford, having spoken against the motion, must shout, "No".
"economic and monetary union: taxes and duties".
It is a wide-ranging clause which seems to give untrammelled power to the Inland Revenue to spend taxpayers' money promoting economic and monetary union before any referendum on the matter has taken place.
"provides legal cover for Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise to spend on preparing for the possibility of UK entry to the single currency."
The note continues:
"The Revenue Departments may need to spend some tens of millions of pounds",
but the amount proposed in the clause is unlimited. We need to debate on the Floor of the House whether there should be a cap on that amount. The note refers to tens of millions of pounds being spent before the United Kingdom even has a referendum on the issue.
"Some of this expenditure would go beyond current Parliamentary guidelines."
If a short clause in the Bill proposes such a radical measure, surely it is right for it to be considered by the whole House, rather than being kicked up into a Committee Room, where Ministers and Labour Members no doubt want to sweep it under the table.
11.36 pm
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