National Insurance Contributions Bill

I am still reflecting on whether I would support my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) if he pressed amendment No. 16 to a Division, but I believe that it would provide greater protection. I am worried about the human rights effect of the Bill. Others share that concern. It was interesting to read the evidence that was given to the Treasury Committee in December 2004. John Whiting from PricewaterhouseCoopers went as far as to suggest that the avoidance measure that we are discussing"““does have . . . human rights implications””." He contradicted the Chancellor’s statement that the Bill complies with human rights legislation. He stated:"““There is never any objection to the Government, the Minister, standing up and saying, ‘As of today, we are going to block such and such””, so let’s get that clear . . . The idea that you can stand up and say, or put a written statement down and say, ““Right, if something turns up in the future, we don’t know what it is, but we reserve the right to come back to today and basically change the way the tax law operates’, let’s be clear, the system of tax we have in this country is that you are taxed on the basis of what the law says. If, therefore, there is a possibility of retrospectively altering your tax bill, then it does have very interesting human rights implications and it has been mooted that this idea of retrospection could now be vulnerable to human rights challenges if we go that far.””" Anne Redston from Ernst and Young gave written evidence to the Committee. She said of the Bill:"““This is a radical new departure for the UK, which has for centuries accepted that tax cannot be levied unless parliament has passed specific legislation authorising its collection.””" That principle is enshrined in the Magna Carta. As Simon Schama put it in his ““A History of Britain””:"““The Magna Carta . . . spelled out for the first time, and unequivocally . . . that the law was not simply the will or whim of the king but was an independent power in its own right.””" The history of democratic government in Britain has, as one of its fundamental themes, the establishing of the right of citizens to be taxed not by government fiat but by the clear words of statute, following the introduction of specific legislation. What is the Minister’s answer to those charges? Many of us fear that the Bill rips up the rights that were enshrined in the Magna Carta, and that it should not therefore be proceeded with in its present form.