National Insurance Contributions Bill

I shall stop smiling at that one now. There was a scheme involving fur coats, and another involving oriental carpets. What would the reaction be if one of the Longton fire crews were offered payment in the form of oriental carpets? It is ridiculous. There must have been huge warehouses attached to Schipol airport in Amsterdam, given the amount of goods apparently sitting there waiting for an employee to pop across to collect and bring back to the United Kingdom. I would be somewhat concerned if one of the highly skilled, innovative and creative people working at Wedgwood in my constituency were offered payment in platinum sponge. Platinum sponge is not some nice little object that might be put on the mantelpiece; it is a highly volatile, unstable form of platinum. I would certainly not want to put that on my mantelpiece, and then take it down to the local market and trade it in. We have heard allusions to creativity and innovation, but what that really means is making sure that certain individuals can get out of paying what most of us have to pay in tax and national insurance. I have encountered arrangements in the past involving a room full of people and a pile of documents, each document carefully numbered and laid out because it is crucial for them all to be signed in the right order if the scheme is to work. Is that what is meant by the certainty to which Opposition Members refer? There is a fair amount of understanding among Opposition Members, however. I recall that in April 1995 a Conservative Minister—I forget which one—introduced measures to stop what he described as a national insurance dodge using tradeable assets. The issue has been recognised for a long time. Obviously, paying someone in coffee beans to try to avoid national insurance is an appalling thing to do. In the past, certainly for the past 15 years or so, we have seen a cat-and-mouse game. A scheme, or anti-avoidance legislation, is introduced; tax advisers sit down and work out a way around it; the next Finance Bill tries to tackle it; someone works out a way around that; another Finance Bill is produced; and then we reach the position we are in now. North Staffordshire chamber of commerce, for example, says it wants much simpler, more straightforward Finance Acts. Time and again, however, recent Finance Acts have tackled avoidance schemes, which is why they have been so lengthy. This Bill is long overdue and would have been a very welcome legislative addition back in the early 1990s. Some £240 million a year is at stake, and north Staffordshire would certainly welcome the 10,000 new teachers that that money would fund. This money is owed to the Exchequer, and it is simply the use of creative schemes that has led to its not being paid. My constituents, who pay their national insurance and their tax, would welcome that money coming in to the Revenue to provide police officers, teachers and the like in our constituencies.