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

My Lords, the Bill is about Members of this House taking responsibility as legislators in the UK to pay tax in this county. We have to recognise that the reputation of politicians in the United Kingdom at the moment is low. The mess we had this week over the Government’s attempt to push through the members’ expenses order is the latest example of own goals with regard to our reputation. On Wednesday the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said he was withdrawing the order in the hope that the Government would manage to re-establish a cross-party consensus. There never was one. There may have been a comfortable two-party consensus between those on the Labour Benches who had something to hide and those on the Conservative Benches who had something to hide, but we were never consulted and certainly never agreed. As we enter a recession, we recognise the degree of public anger at the denial by the financial elite in Britain, the United States, France, Germany and elsewhere of any responsibility to their wider national societies—certainly not in paying tax. I well remember Leona Helmsley’s dictum in a previous recession that, ““Only the little people pay taxes””. That is one of the problems we are up against, and it is something that my party will be campaigning on in the next few months; we need fair taxation, and everyone should pay tax. There are severe dangers to the Conservative Party, and I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is aware of them, in allowing itself to be identified with fat cats and tax evaders. We know, without mentioning names, that there are those appointed to the Conservative Benches who made promises on appointment that have not been fulfilled, one or two whose status is in need of clarification and has not been clarified, and we know that some of those people are among the largest donors to the party. So there are issues—and I agree with the noble Lord that we need to take responsibility—of disciplinary measures within the Conservative group. The issue is about the reputation of this House and, as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said, about interim measures that we need to take, recognising that, whatever the final shape of this House may be, we are going to be stuck with its current composition for some time. Perhaps other measures will come through on an interim basis, but this is one that I suggest needs to be considered seriously. The Conservatives will do themselves great damage if they attempt to treat this flippantly or sarcastically and suggest that the evasion of tax is not a serious problem.