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Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 40:
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 41:
The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 41, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 59. These are technical amendments. Once the provisions of the Bill come into force, decisions about entitlement to statutory sick pay or maternity pay will be made by officers of the Board of the Inland Revenue. Appeals against such decisions will be heard by tax appeal commissioners. The amendments therefore ensure that any references to those benefits in those parts of the Social Security Act 1998 which deal with decisions by the Secretary of State and appeals to tribunals are removed as they are no longer required. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendments Nos. 42 and 43:
The noble Baroness said: With the leave of the Committee, I shall move Amendments Nos. 42 and 43 en bloc. These amendments have already been spoken to. I beg to move.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 44:
The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 44 I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 45, 46 and 53. These are technical amendments to remove from new Sections 10A and 24A of the Social Security Act 1998 references to "questions" to be consistent with the new focus introduced by that Act on "outcome decisions".
At present a claim for benefit involves a bundle of subsidiary questions, some of which may give rise to separate decisions and rights of appeal to different appellate bodies. Under the 1998 Act the only decision which is generally to be given is an outcome decision. That is the one which is the bottom line from the customer's point of view and will be appealable to the new unified appeal tribunal. Therefore concepts of subsidiary questions are not to be found in the 1998 Act and we need to make sure that new Sections 10A and 24A reflect that. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendments Nos. 45 and 46:
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendments Nos. 47 to 50:
The noble Baroness said: These amendments have already been spoken to. I beg to move.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendments Nos. 52 and 53:
The noble Baroness said: With the leave of the Committee, I shall move these amendments en bloc. The amendments have already been spoken to. I beg to move.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Schedule 6, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 20 [Property, rights and liabilities]:
Lord Higgins moved Amendment No. 54:
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 54 concerns a minor point. I was puzzled by the fact that, if assets are to be transferred, it appears to be the recipient rather than the donor who is going to certify that the transaction has been completed. It seems more appropriate, if a certificate is to be issued, that it should be issued by the Department of Social Security rather than by the Inland Revenue or the Treasury which are coming into the assets.
The other point is a hierarchical one. If a certificate is to be issued, it should be issued by a Minister rather than by an official. I beg to move.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: I hope I can deal with this amendment fairly swiftly.
I have mentioned from time to time during our debates on this Bill that machinery of government transfers of functions are usually achieved by orders under the Ministers of the Crown Act 1975. However, I have explained that, because the Inland Revenue is not a ministerial department for the purposes of that Act, we need a separate Bill to transfer functions. But this Bill has needed to cover much the same ground as an order and in a number of places we have imported much the same wording as one would find in either that Act or an order made under it. Clause 20 is one such example.
Like any organisation, the Contributions Agency owns property, receives goods and services under contracts and has liabilities. As an agency of my department it does so on behalf of the Secretary of State for Social Security. Our underlying objective is to ensure that the Contributions Agency can transfer property rights and liabilities over to the Inland Revenue so that it has all the necessary goods and services to enable it to continue its work. So Clause 20 provides that the property, rights and liabilities of the Secretary of State are transferred to the Inland Revenue or Treasury when their related functions are transferred. Subsection (3), which would be deleted by this amendment, simply provides that, should it be necessary to establish the ownership of any property to which Clause 20 applies, a certificate issued by the Inland Revenue or the Treasury shall be conclusive evidence that the property has been transferred to them.
Let me explain how this provision might be used by way of an example. Let us say that in five years' time a company wishes to buy a piece of land from the Inland Revenue which was formerly Contributions Agency property. The company would wish to satisfy itself that the Inland Revenue was the legal owner of that land. In order to do so, its solicitors would need to check through the provisions of the Bill to link the land with functions transferred to the Inland Revenue. That would be a complex and expensive task. The certification procedure cuts through that and provides a simpler mechanism for verifying the ownership of the land; the Inland Revenue would simply supply the company with such a certificate and that would make clear that the new owner had good title to the land.
This is based on a standard wording used in provisions transferring functions. Members of the Committee may be familiar with the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990. This permitted transfers of functions to set up new health authorities and Section 8(8) of that Act included a similar certification procedure.
In the light of that explanation I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Page 46, line 28, at end insert--
("15A. In paragraph 8 of Schedule 2 to the Social Security Contributions and Benefits (Northern Ireland) Act 1992 (application of Part V of Taxes Management Act 1970 in relation to Class 4
contributions), for the words from "but nothing" to "arising--" there is substituted "but nothing in this Schedule affects the extent to which the Income Tax Acts apply with respect to any decision falling to be made--".").
Page 46, leave out lines 34 to 37 and insert--
("(3) Subsection (3) is omitted.").
Page 47, line 22, leave out ("In").
Page 47, line 23, after ("State)") insert ("is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1)--
(a) at the end of paragraph (b) there is inserted "and", and
(b) paragraph (d) and the word "and" immediately preceding it are omitted.
(3)").
Page 47, line 33, leave out ("question") and insert ("other matter").
Page 47, line 48, leave out ("question") and insert ("other matter").
Page 48, line 2, leave out ("question") and insert ("other matter").
Page 48, line 6, leave out ("In").
Page 48, line 6, after ("tribunal)") insert ("is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1)--
(a) at the end of paragraph (a) there is inserted "or", and
(b) paragraph (c) and the word "or" immediately preceding it are omitted.
(3)").
Page 48, line 12, at end insert--
("22A. In section 13 of the Social Security Act 1998 (redetermination etc. of appeals by tribunal), for subsection (4) there is substituted--
"(4) In this section and section 14 below "the principal parties" means--
(a) the persons mentioned in subsection (3)(a) and (b) of that section, and
(b) where applicable, the person mentioned in subsection (3)(d) and such a person as is first mentioned in subsection (4) of that section."
22B. In section 14 of the Social Security Act 1998 (appeal from tribunal to Commissioner), the following provisions are omitted--
(a) subsection (2), and
(b) in subsection (3), the words "In any other case".").
Page 48, line 14, at end insert--
("23A. In section 18 of the Social Security Act 1998 (matters arising as respects decisions), in subsection (1)(a)--
(a) at the end of each of sub-paragraphs (i) and (ii) there is inserted "or", and
(b) sub-paragraphs (iii) and (iv) are omitted.").
Page 48, line 20, at end insert--
("25A. In section 21 of the Social Security Act 1998 (suspension in prescribed circumstances), subsection (4) shall cease to have effect.").
Page 48, line 36, leave out ("consideration of any claim or question") and insert ("the appeal").
Page 10, line 15, leave out subsection (3).
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