Taxation (International and Other Provisions) Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Newton, should have no qualms: I am not about to suggest erudite or stupid amendments to the Bill. I join everyone who has spoken in paying tribute to the team of officials and politicians who have laboured long and hard to produce this calibre of work. Unlike the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, I was here when the Capital Allowances Bill passed through the House. I was a young man then. She talked about flicking through that Act and how complicated it was. Needless to say, I have not read the Capital Allowances Act in full detail but I flicked through it and noticed one problem that arises with tax law and accretes year after year. The page on which my eyes alighted related to a special capital allowance regime for dredgers. I have no idea why there is such a regime, but at the time there was clearly a good reason for putting in something that related to that very narrow part of our economy. It is that accumulation of good reasons over the years that has helped to make our tax law as complicated as it is. As the noble Baroness pointed out, we have had in this Administration an extraordinary enthusiasm for long Finance Bills. From the outside, it almost seemed like a macho desire to outdo the number of pages in the previous Finance Bill, because it reached epidemic proportions. I am delighted that the noble Baroness has such faith in her party as to believe that, were it elected to government, it would be able to do something about that. The proposal to have better pre-legislative scrutiny is important. I am not sure that of itself it simplifies things all that much, but it is a welcome proposal. The only proposal for simplification that I know of that would take out hundreds of pages of tax legislation at a stroke is an anti-avoidance rule. Not only would it do that but it would also block off the likelihood of many more hundreds of pages going on to the statute book. Although there are many arguments for and against that, my view is that it is worth doing. It would simplify the law and reduce the scope for further complexity. However, we will see whether a future Government of whatever colour are successful in simplifying tax law. It would be a major achievement for which they would get no credit whatsoever except from the professionals. I hope, however, that they try and are successful. In the mean time, we definitely wish this Bill godspeed.