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National Insurance Contributions Bill

My hon. Friend sums up the position well. For the sake of completeness, let me add that there is the matter of regulation, which would be introduced through the affirmative procedure. No doubt the Minister will make that point. It might be helpful to compare two very similar tax changes—a failure to uprate the threshold for income tax in line with inflation and an increase in the upper earnings limit. A failure to uprate a threshold for income tax would be announced in the Budget. Under the previous Chancellor it was unlikely that it would be announced in the Budget speech, but it would appear in the Red Book. There would then be four days of debate on the Budget, followed by a vote on a Budget resolution that, as I understand it, would include the income tax element. The resolution would be implemented through a Finance Bill. There would be a Second Reading debate on the Bill, and the income tax element would be a major part of the Bill. One can imagine an Opposition opposing a Finance Bill on the grounds of a failure to uprate income tax. That would almost certainly be one of the issues debated by a Committee of the whole House considering such a Finance Bill. The issue would presumably not be debated in Committee, but would certainly come back on Report and Third Reading. So by my reckoning, in the circumstances that I set out, a failure to increase the threshold for income tax would be the subject of up to seven days' debate on the Floor of the House and at least four votes of the House—not of the Committee, but of the House. By contrast, a tax increase on income, which is in many respects similar to the case that I described, such as raising the upper earnings limit, would be the subject of one debate in Committee, lasting perhaps two and a half hours, followed by one vote in Committee. In one case there would be a much superior method of parliamentary scrutiny. There is hardly any comparison between the two cases, and that is difficult to justify.