National Insurance Contributions Bill

Conservative Members quote the Rees rules but I am not sure that they understand exactly how they are implemented. I remind them that HMRC issued a detailed technical note on the day of the pre-Budget report that made it clear that contrived and complex avoidance schemes were being closed down. Draft legislation was issued shortly afterward and comments on the technical detail were invited. The reference in the regulatory impact assessment to which the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) drew attention relates to the disclosure rules, not to the retrospective aspect. Given that we are dealing with inconsistencies, I should point out that one minute Conservative Members claim that nobody understood the meaning of the statement of 2 December 2004, yet the next they pray in aid accountants’ and accountancy firms’ explanations—given in December 2004—of their understanding of the statement’s meaning. Let me give Conservative Members three helpful quotations from the people at PricewaterhouseCoopers, as provided by John Whiting. The first states:"““we recognise the problem that the Government is trying to tackle by taking this unusual power.””" So the people at PricewaterhouseCoopers know what we are dealing with. They continue by saying that they"““congratulate those responsible for . . . this Bill””" and for"““the package of explanatory notes and frequently asked questions that accompany it and (seemingly) the potential for proper time to debate it””" on the Floor of the House and in Committee. The third quote is probably the most important:"““the first use of powers in this area will be to bring in NIC regulations to parallel the charges imposed by Schedule 2 F(2)A 2005 in the employee securities area. There can be no objection to this””." So the idea that people do not understand the very precise way in which the Government are approaching this issue—