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National Insurance Contributions Bill

I have some sympathy with the amendment, because what concerned me earlier was the thought that the Treasury could apply rules retrospectively a long way back. A provision such as this would help to deal with that. However, I have one slight query with this approach. It seems to me perfectly legitimate for the Treasury to change its mind and say, ““We thought that this practice should be treated in one way for tax five years ago, but we have changed our mind and we want to deal with it in a different way””. My concern is that under the Bill, the Treasury could change its mind and apply that change of mind retrospectively. That is the cause for concern. Governments change their minds all the time. That is fine as long as they can pass legislation to apply new provisions. Changing your mind about what happened five years ago is unsatisfactory. I am not sure that the amendment completely deals with that issue, but at least it grapples with the problem.