National Insurance Contributions Bill

I understand what my right hon. Friend is saying. If he will bear with me for just a short while, I shall try to balance out the argument. I thought that, in fairness to him and other hon. Members, I should make them aware of these things, as part of their judgment and that of the House on my amendment. I am afraid that my right hon. Friend’s reservations will be perhaps strengthened by the fact that paragraph 36 of the same document says:"““the Commissioners act on behalf of the Crown and are civil servants. This continues the arrangements for the predecessor departments, and it is intended that one of the Commissioners will be appointed by the Prime Minister to be Permanent Secretary of HMRC, and by the Treasury to be Principal Accounting Officer.””" I confess to my right hon. Friend that things are going downhill rapidly, and we must bear that in mind. I am happy to say that the ray of light comes somewhat later because, further on in the document—this is slightly more encouraging—paragraph 46 says:"““The Commissioners’ responsibility for the collection and management of revenue is defined in section 51(3) as meaning the same as ‘care and management’ in previous enactments. It thus preserves continuity of treatment for those revenues that previously were subject to a duty of care and management, as this term is familiar to the wider business, legal and tax practitioner communities””." It then makes reference to national insurance contributions, just to tie this into the Bill and the amendments that we are considering. Switching back from the explanatory note to the 2005 Act itself, I shall now draw the attention of the House to section 5(1) to (4), which spells out how the commissioners will be"““responsible for . . . the collection and management of revenue””" and ““other functions””. Section 5(4) states:"““‘revenue’ includes taxes, duties and national insurances contributions.””" We are on reasonably firm ground there. The ray of light that I have detected in the 2005 Act—this may help my right hon. Friend and other hon. Members to balance their judgment—is that section 9(1), on ancillary powers, states:"““The Commissioners may do anything which they think—""(a) necessary or expedient in connection with the exercise of their functions, or""(b) incidental or conducive to the exercise of their functions.””" So we have in the 2005 Act itself the possibility that the commissioners will be able, where they see fit, to act rather more independently of the Treasury than the previous words that I mentioned would suggest.