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House of Lords (Members’ Taxation Status) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for introducing this interesting short Bill, which I welcome. He discussed individual cases but, as he made clear, it is a matter of principle that if we are Members of this House and legislate on matters that affect our citizens who do not have the choice of whether to pay tax, we ought to pay tax like them. Whatever another place does, we have to clean up our act because we are under greater suspicion. The world out there thinks that we are very wealthy and that we are up to no good, especially when they see pictures of us in the newspapers prancing around in ermine robes. So I think it is very important that we should be even more careful in that respect than another place. I wish to make one point on this short Bill, which I hope the noble Lord will consider. I believe that a sinner who repents should be given another chance. Therefore, rather than make these Peers take leave of absence for life, I think it should apply until such time as they affirm that they are UK taxpayers. That may be just a technical detail and the noble Lord will probably tell me that it has been covered in the arcane drafting. I have to say that after 17 years here I still do not understand any piece of legislation which I read. It appears to me that there is always something missing that I should know about. We should allow people to recant and come back, as and when they pay up, and give a lot of publicity to such people. A further dimension is not covered by the Bill, and is not covered by UK law as far as I am aware. I am told that, in a Liechtenstein bank, there are 40 Peers who are obviously resorting to some fairly fancy stuff on tax evasion. I do not know what we do about people who have resorted to such fancy moves because they are in fact very much like noble Lords who live in Monaco or wherever. The next time round the noble Lord may think of another short Bill to sort that problem out.