National Insurance Contributions Bill

I want to support amendment No. 14, which seems reasonable and sensible—““reasonable”” is the operative word. We are considering the principle of retrospective taxation. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) has referred to that being applied in this case against fat cats. One can support the principle, but it might be applied to fat cats today and poor people tomorrow. There is an underlying principle of retrospection that must naturally concern us. It might particularly worry the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) that his position has quite a lot of support not just from me but from the European Court of Justice. He did not cite that in his defence, but European law, not just the Magna Carta, appears to have some concerns in this area. On Second Reading, I quoted a relevant passage from an April judgment by the Court, which was important and would be applied by anybody seeking to use the law in relation to this Bill. It made two points, one unequivocal and the other more nuanced. The unequivocal point was that"““The principles of the protection of legitimate expectation and legal certainty form a part of the Community legal order. They must accordingly be observed . . . by the Member States””." That makes it clear that infringement of legitimate expectation by retrospective legislation is unacceptable in legal terms. The more nuanced expression, on which the legal battles will ultimately be fought, was that"““Although in general the principle of legal certainty precludes a Community measure from taking effect from a point in time before its publication—" that is, retrospectively—"““it may exceptionally be otherwise where the purpose to be achieved so demands and where the legitimate expectations of those concerned are duly respected””." We are concerned with trying to build into the legislation the maximum possible protection for those legitimate expectations, to ensure that they are respected. Something that is merely expedient from the standpoint of the Treasury, which is practical from its point of view and helps it to garner more revenue—which, of course, we support in a broad sense—is dangerous when applied to that principle. Building in the limited protection that would be given by the word ““reasonable”” seems the very minimum that one could ask. The hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) is therefore to be commended for tabling the amendment, and I will certainly support it.