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National Insurance Contributions Bill

I have some sympathy with what the noble Baroness is seeking to achieve. Although in many ways the amendment is a counsel of perfection, she underestimates the ability of the Treasury and Treasury Ministers to produce a piece of paper which might technically satisfy the requirements of the amendment, but would not necessarily shed any great light on it. The first of the two areas for which explanation is required relates to explaining why the paths have diverged. I have noticed that Ministers, particularly in another place, have started using the word ““right”” to justify any change that they wish to implement. The phrase, ““We are doing this because it is right””, is now the day-to-day lexicon of justification in another place. ““Right”” is a completely subjective description and gets you absolutely nowhere, but has the advantage that it can be used with great conviction. It is used by Ministers, but it is just a covering for what Ministers wish to do. As far as setting out the expected future paths of the two limits is concerned, one could imagine that there would be a broad statement of principle around which so many caveats about why it might not in reality come to pass would be hung that, again, it might not necessarily be worth the paper it was written on. While there is a lot to be recommended in the general principle that the Treasury should come forward to Parliament to explain in simple and credible language what it was doing, as this is far from the practice in so many other areas, any attempt to achieve the aims of that principle in this narrow area would almost certainly be doomed to failure.