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

I am most grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention. I will try to explain why I think these amendments need further thought. I was saying that I think that I understand where the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, is coming from, but Amendments Nos. 3 and 5 would allow those working in an official capacity to retain membership of your Lordships’ House. Therefore, they introduce a glaring incidence of double standards. If accepted, it would on the one hand be permissible for those expecting to retake their seats in your Lordships’ House to go off abroad and earn substantial remuneration simply on the grounds that they are employed in some loosely defined way by the Crown or by an international organisation, of which the United Kingdom is a member, while on the other hand it would not be acceptable for other Members of your Lordships’ House to go off to work unashamedly and perfectly legally in the private sector overseas to earn valuable foreign currency to the UK’s benefit and then return and retake their seats. What also needs to be answered is whether, in order to retain their status as Members of your Lordships’ House, Peers employed outside the United Kingdom by the Crown or by an international organisation, of which the United Kingdom is a member, would be required while resident abroad to pay United Kingdom tax, or at least to remit to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs the amount by which UK tax on their earnings would have exceeded the foreign tax they paid while they were so working had they been UK-resident. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, does not appear so to provide. I think I understand his explanation why it does not but his noble friend’s Bill would therefore result in other Members of your Lordships’ House being exposed to double taxation, so it smacks of double standards, as I say. My noble friend Lord Howard of Rising makes a very valid point with his Amendment No. 4; namely, that even if the rest of it is acceptable, the wording of the original Amendment No. 3 is far too wide. The United Kingdom is a member of many international organisations. The noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, himself said at Second Reading that, "““we need to be careful to define the type of international public bodies which would qualify; otherwise, we could leave gaping loopholes””.—[Official Report, 14/3/08; col. 1710.]" We look forward to his proposal and perhaps that of his noble friend Lord Goodhart on how to deal with these problems.