National Insurance Contributions Bill

I concede to the hon. Gentleman that that is a possibility. It is something that he and the House must take into account when they decide what to do about the amendment. I am trying to make the general point at the moment that such provisions appear to give the Government enormous and unlimited powers to do whatever they want, whenever they want, and, indeed, to do so retrospectively. That danger exists throughout the Bill. When we consider the other amendments in the group, we will find that they address a similar area of concern. Proposed new section 4C(3)(a) is a similar measure that says that regulations may make provision to modify"““any provision of any enactment””." Again, the Bill will give extraordinarily wide powers under regulations. The problem is that owing to the way in which our parliamentary procedures work, regulations cannot be amended. Whether regulations are considered under the affirmative or negative procedure, they come before the House on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. Bad enough though such a phrase is, it is in many ways worse than it would be if it related to primary legislation. Such legislation is at least, in theory, amendable, although goodness knows that we get little opportunity to amend legislation these days, unless the Government have cocked something up and have to amend their own legislation, which happens all too frequently. Proposed new section 4C(3)(b) says that regulations may make provision"““for any provision of any such enactment to apply in such cases, and with such modifications (if any), as the regulations may prescribe.””" The wording is becoming more general and generous, but less restrictive and specific. When confronted with such wording, the House is being asked to say to the Government, ““We trust you. We think that this is generally rather a good idea,””—which, by the way, I do not, but we will come back to that on Third Reading. However, the Government are saying to us, ““If you sign up to these words, there will and can be no comeback whatsoever.”” By using the word ““any”” over and over again, the Government are telling us that they will do what they think is appropriate at the time, retrospectively or otherwise.