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

I thank the noble Lord for that; he has helped to clarify a point. If the point that he has been making were to apply to 103,000 elected bodies and so on, this would be a taxation Bill. But it is not. That is why it applies to this House. We are talking about this House only and what we do in this House. I did not say that there is no difference objectively between domicile, residence or anything else in general. If it was a general taxation Bill, of course I would accept that. I am saying that there is no difference as far as the effect of this Bill is concerned, because people are just going to pay full British taxes. That is the point. It is not relevant to this Bill, but it would be to a general taxation Bill. On the question of whether there can be a change following what was said in the Budget, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said that the Government have said that they would not revisit it, but the small print of the Budget document states that the regime will not be substantially changed over the next two Parliaments in so far as it affects non-domiciles. The idea that passing this Bill and affecting perhaps a handful of non-domiciled Peers is a substantial change just does not stand up. I am sure that if it is a rule of the House, I do not see why it should be overtaken by that statement.