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Finance Bill

I had not intended to speak, but I shall contribute briefly to the debate. Among the Members present, I probably have the unique experience, having spent the past 15 years in the profession, of seeing Finance Bills from the other side of the fence, and for the past month or so of seeing how the Finance Bill is put into practice as a legislator. With every Finance Bill that is published, various institutes have to publish commentaries. My own institute, the Chartered Institute of Taxation, will shortly send, with a large thud through my letterbox at home, a commentary on the present Finance Bill when it is enacted. The Treasury publishes its explanatory notes, and we all miss the presence of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) to point out aspects of the notes to us. Many other bodies and individuals will offer expert commentaries on the Bill. Earlier speakers referred to the remit of the tax law rewrite committee that has been established for some time. As I understand it, the committee’s original remit of was to render into plain English the existing body of tax law. If the committee came across inconsistencies in the English while it was doing that, it would point them out, but its remit was not to rewrite the meaning of that tax law. From what the hon. Member for Normanton (Ed Balls) was suggesting, this proposal is quite different. In no way does it conflict with the work of the tax law rewrite committee. There is a need for some standing commission to examine tax law as it accumulates with every Finance Bill—this year there have been three, in total—to make sure that the legislation that we have in place works for a modern 21st century economy.