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Finance Bill

That is an excellent point. Indeed, some payments have been made, but I suspect that they were nowhere near adequate compensation for what people will have had to go through—not only all the telephone calls and letter writing, but all the stress, and sometimes negotiations with banks—because they properly provided information, but it was not taken into account, so they found themselves in great difficulties. There are two overall themes to our concerns. One is the lack of certainty. Most people would accept that good legislation requires certainty. The current group of amendments, like the previous one, deals with the fact that there is very little certainty on which people can rely. We also feel that HMRC should be putting its own house in order. We are very cautious about extending the powers of HMRC—an agency that has consistently sought to push to the absolute limit the powers that it already has. I am thinking of its attitude to chasing tax on contractual termination payments under clause 49 and the attempts in this year's Bill to give it unlimited access powers to businesses. Those are draconian powers, and when such an approach is combined with uncertainty, we will have an unacceptable mix. Reference has been made to the Financial Secretary's letter of 24 April, which clearly went to a number of colleagues, and to the penalties for errors dealt with in clause 117. It is the fact that no real certainty is provided that concerns us. To say that work in this area is ongoing, which is a bit like what was said about the last set of amendments, gives no great reassurance to anyone. Good legislation requires certainty, so if the Government believe that interim rules are required, they should state them in primary legislation and not try to bring them in through the back door in regulations later in the year. The Government need to provide real reassurances, and it is essential to tighten up the clause. We think that it would be better to tighten up the provision, if that is possible, than to remove it. We agree that there is a legitimate expectation that individuals who deliberately provide false information for the purposes of tax evasion should be penalised, but we cannot support the clause as currently drafted. We support amendments Nos. 1A, 2A, 3A and 4A, however, because they would introduce a measure of control over what the Government are trying to do. We urge the Government to abandon the drip, drip method of using regulations to amend these powers, as it seems to be catching on far too much, and we think it should be curtailed. May I also give advance notice that we shall certainly want to oppose the inspection powers in clause 108? We will no doubt discuss that provision upstairs in the next few weeks. We feel that it is just another example of the powers that are being provided to an already over-powerful agency, and that does very little to assist us in being convinced about it. What the legislation proposes is sensible, but it is not clear enough for us to be able to support it. Therefore, we will support the amendments if they are pressed to a Division.