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Mr. Damian Green: In Committee, the Minister said:
"The clause as it stands is merely about defining—ill-defining perhaps—the permit scheme, rather than that level of detail. I would ask to leave that detail to regulation". —[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 29 January 2004; c. 154.]
I am sure that that will make my right hon. Friend even more suspicious.
Mr. Forth:
I am grateful, sort of, to my hon. Friend. We are asked to approve Ways and Means resolutions without any details, and that is made worse when we hear that they will be spelled out in regulations. We are being asked to sign a blank cheque on behalf of our taxpayers, fee payers, stealth tax payers or any other category we care to mention.
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That is not satisfactory, and it is not unreasonable for us to ask the Minister how far he feels fees will be automatic, comprehensive and at the maximum level. The authority is, after all, the Secretary of State. The Minister works for the Secretary of State—and, presumably, talks to him occasionally—so I would expect some guidance as to his expectation. We need guidance as to whether we are talking about maxima, minima, every time or some of the time, or whether fees are to be payable, repaid or discounted.
We then come to a point that was touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell)—the time and manner of the payment of fees. It would be useful if we were given some indication of the relationship between the authority, the utilities and their consumers or shareholders, and of whether there will be any possibility of deferred payments. Would fines be payable and levied on those who failed to pay the initial fees? If so, what sort of fines are we talking about? It may be that if the fees are not paid, no fines would be levied, which would be interesting. If fines are to be payable, or contemplated, we need to know more before we decide whether to support the resolution.
"the application of sums paid by way of fees."
I am not quite sure of the implication of that but it obviously has a bearing. The fees enabled by the resolution will be applied in a way we know not how, because we have no guidance.
I wish that Ministers would take the hint from the House, and that they would tell us what was on their mind, as well as the extent that taxpayers would be involved, so that we as Members of Parliament can make a judgment. I do not think that that is asking too much. I hope that I have given the Minister something to work on today. I look forward to him persuading me why I should vote in favour of the resolution.
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Mr. Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con): I shall not detain the House for long. On most occasions when I have heard the Minister at work, I have found him a powerful advocate, but I am afraid that his powers of advocacy rather deserted him today. He has not convinced me, certainly at this stage, that the Ways and Means resolution is either necessary or desirable. Those are the two tests that the House needs to apply. Is the motion necessary to enable the Government to discharge their business in the Bill, and is it desirable?
I intervened during the Minister's opening remarks, but he discounted my concerns. I was worried that the charging of fees could be another money-raising exercise, but he said no and that he had done his best to ensure that the fees would recover costs only. He referred me to Lords amendments Nos. 28 and 29, which are relevant to the Ways and Means resolution, but what do they say? Do they reassure the House or add to the concerns expressed?
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As I look at Lords amendments Nos. 27, 28 and 29, I find my concerns deepening and not being allayed by the Minister's reference. Under amendment No. 29, we are told that
"the appropriate national authority must try to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the fees payable in connection with permit schemes do not exceed such costs".
"so far as . . . reasonably practicable"
mean? I notice that the amendment does not contain any requirement that the costs have to be reasonable: it simply refers to "such costs". A local authority could set up a body and employ council employees at great expense, as there is no duty on those issuing the permits to behave in a reasonable way and keep their costs down. I would have thought that the amendment should contain such provisions.
Mr. Forth: I may be able to help my right hon. Friend. He has, of course, read all the provisions and a later amendment actually refers to
"such costs in connection with permit schemes as may be prescribed."
Does my right hon. Friend agree that that shows that the provision goes even further than he is assuming and that the costs will be prescribed, I suspect, by the Secretary of State? That may not give my right hon. Friend any comfort, but that was my reading of the provision. Was it his?
Mr. Knight: That means that it could go either way. A Conservative Secretary of State would, as we all know, impose a provision that the costs had to be reasonable, but I am much less certain about what might be put in place by the present Government. It goes even further because Lords amendment No. 27 refers to the giving of fixed penalty notices. It occurs to me that, if we are charging people for a permit and even if it is a reasonable charge that recoups the cost of issuing it, those issuing the permits are still likely to be awash with money because of the issuing of fixed penalty notices. That poses the question why we need to charge for a permit at all. Why not issue a free permit to the contractor and make bad contractors pay the fixed penalty notice fines? The money received through such payments would undoubtedly cover the cost of issuing the permits in the first place.
Mr. Andrew Mitchell: My right hon. Friend is on to an extremely good point, which reinforces the reservations that he expressed—with which I agree—in his opening remarks. The whole nature of the financing arrangement through permits, including the question of how much money will be raised and what the Government's assumptions are, must be significantly explored before the House can vote on the resolution. For example, does the Minister believe that a certain percentage of the total money raised will come from people defaulting on the permits and subsequently being fined? What percentage will come from that mechanism?
Mr. Knight:
My hon. Friend raises a very good point and I hope that the Minister will reply to it in his
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winding-up speech. I would have thought that he would have set out the answers to such questions in his opening speech rather than wait for them to be teased out by Opposition Members. These questions go right to the root of the question whether the Bill needs a Ways and Means resolution. I have to say that the Minister has not convinced me that that resolution is either necessary or desirable.
What happens when a permit scheme is in place and the fees are rolling in, but it subsequently becomes clear to those examining the arrangements that the charging body is awash with fees because it has charged too much? There is no provision in any of the amendments for a refund of excessive fees. I applauded the decision of the late President Ronald Reagan when he was Governor of California; when he found out that his tax revenues were in excess of his spending plans, he gave the money back to the people of California. Why is there no similar provision to ensure that if, after the first 12 months of operation, the fees are deemed to be too high, they can be returned to those who paid them in the first place?
Mr. Forth: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, but I feel a bit hurt. He was obviously not paying his usual close attention to my modest contribution to the debate. I read out clause 36(5)(b) of the Bill, which makes provision for
"cases in which fees are not to be payable or are to be repaid".
If my right hon. Friend does not mind, we could perhaps call this the "Ronald Reagan" provision. There it is—in black and white, and in the Bill.
Mr. Knight: Perhaps the Minister could therefore clarify whether my right hon. Friend is right and whether, if the fees were leading to huge profits, a refund would be made. It is not entirely clear to me that that is the Government's intention.
Mr. Andrew Mitchell: On that point, can my right hon. Friend think of any occasion when such a repayment has ever been made?
Mr. Knight: In relation to permit fees, no, I cannot think of any occasion when refunds have been made. However, one should always be prepared to look afresh at issues and problems. The fact that it may not have happened in the UK in the past is not a good argument, in my view, for saying that it should not happen in the future. I rather agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) that if the Bill allows it to be done, it should be done.
The Minister referred to Lords amendment No. 29, but it does not seem to me to contain any sanctions at all in respect of incorrect calculations or huge profits being made from permit fees. What sanctions are there? Does the Minister expect an aggrieved member of the public to embark on judicial proceedings to bring about a review of the permit fees? There should be a far simpler mechanism in place to enable the fees to be reduced without members of the public having to have recourse to their own court proceedings.
There are many unanswered questions and unless the Minister can answer them all satisfactorily, I will not believe that the Bill needs a Ways and Means resolution.
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