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

I am delighted to join the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in the anoraks’ club. I hope that I can learn from him a light-hearted and good-humoured touch. I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, when he moved his amendment and hope that we can stay like that all day. The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, referred to quotations I gave in my speech at Second Reading. The quotes I gave regarding the noble Lord, Lord Laidlaw, were direct quotes from the House of Lords Appointments Commission. It is a great shame if we cannot quote from that body in this House. I hope he will accept that the other things he quoted were light-hearted and good-humoured and take them in that spirit. I thank both Front Benches for their support in principle. To some extent, we have revisited Second Reading. I shall not make another Second Reading speech except to repeat that this is very simple. Some speakers have not quite understood the simplicity of the way in which the Bill aims to deal with the problem. If you sit in the British Parliament, if you sit in this House and vote on laws for the British people, you must pay full British taxes on all your worldwide income and capital gains, like the vast majority of your fellow citizens. That, to me, is entirely clear. My noble friend Lord Goodhart is well able to go into detail about the exact definitions of one sort of domicile or another, but there is no need to. It is a clear principle and I believe that the way in which it is stated in the Bill is clear—you pay tax on that basis whether you are domiciled in the UK or not. That is how you are charged tax. The noble Viscount, Lord Astor, asked why Europe is not included. There is no problem. Peers can live anywhere they like but they pay tax here on the basis that they are resident here. That is a very simple principle which deals with a good number of the detailed points made. The noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, raised a number of points. I promised to reply to them and will do so, in so far as they are relevant to the amendments. He asked me whether what I said on Second Reading had been accurately reported in Hansard. The answer is yes, apart from at col. 1721, where I am reported as saying: "““Briefly, I thank the Minister for giving further publicity to the occasional quotes I have been able to get into the newspapers””.—[Official Report, 14/3/08; col. 1721.]" That was a mistake. I wanted to thank the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. Apart from that, what I said has been accurately reported. I thank him again for congratulating me on my financial background, but that is not really the point. One does not need to be a financial expert for this Bill. I heard what he said about Switzerland and its attraction. Building Design magazine will tomorrow carry the story that the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Thames Bank, is believed to have moved to Switzerland and is non-resident in this country for tax purposes. We await developments, but I can confirm that if that is the case, the noble Lord would, if the Bill went through, still have to pay full British taxes in this country. The principle is quite clear and I cannot see that amending the Bill to include people from Europe can be right. Citizens of EU countries are not able to sit in this House. They do not pay tax on the same basis, so I cannot see why one should make those changes.