House of Lords (Members’ Taxation Status) Bill [HL]

My Lords, politics, rather like the weather, has seasons; spring, summer, autumn and winter. But politics has another season that usually comes around in August and is known as the silly season. One of the joys of the Lib Dems is that they always get there first. Normally, they get there in March or April when they come up with Private Members’ Bills, but this year they have beaten their own record, because the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, has brought forward the first Bill of the silly season in January. That must be a huge record for them and we must congratulate them. But, really, this is a rubbish Bill. It takes no account of any of the reservations that were expressed during Second Reading or in Committee on the previous Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, said that he moved, he thought, Amendment 3 to the previous Bill. But although the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, has had a number of months in which to include that amendment, which affects people working abroad for charities, for NATO or whatever, he has not done so—he has made no changes to his Bill. He has not listen to any of the debates, not even to his noble friend Lord Goodhart, because he should have made those changes. Between the last occasion on which we debated the Bill and this, the Government have published their proposals in a White Paper. The foreword states clearly that there will be no changes to this House until after the next election. They also made some interesting remarks that are worth quoting about nationality requirements and taxation. Page 63 of the White Paper states that: "““The Government proposes that in the absence of any other changes to nationality requirements for membership of the legislature, British citizens and qualifying citizens of the Commonwealth (including citizens of British Overseas Territories) and citizens of the Republic of Ireland would be eligible for membership of a reformed second chamber””." I presume that the Lib Dems signed up to this; certainly no one has said that they do not agree with it. If that is the case, the Government are saying that there could be Members of this House who are domiciled abroad in, say, the British Overseas Territories.