National Insurance Contributions Bill

I want to start by speaking about amendment No. 18, which is a probing amendment. If the Paymaster General can satisfy me that it is unnecessary, I will not press it to a Division. However, I should like to hear her comments on it. Amendment No. 18 would add the word ““future”” to the sentence"““any purpose relating to any statutory payment””," so that it would read, ““any purpose relating to any future statutory payment””. I believe that there are only four sorts of statutory payment: sick pay, maternity pay, adoption pay and paternity pay. The amendment would remove the potential for retrospection from any statutory payments. I should therefore like to know whether the Paymaster General envisages the use of the retrospective provisions for statutory payments. If not, should not the amendment be incorporated in the Bill? If she does envisage such use, will she give an example of when it would be justified? Statutory pay is given for a good reason and people who receive it often spend it almost immediately. If the Government intend to claw it back, the reason for doing that should be placed on record.