I understand that the advice given to my constituent, who is a business person, came from one of the best financial advisers in Scotland. In fact, it was the financial adviser who wrote to Equitable Life long before anyone realised that it was defrauding people by enhancing assets falsely, and who was the first person called to give evidence to the Treasury Committee. They have advised my constituent that the problem is, in fact, in this Bill and the performance under its terms. It might be based on a previous ability to do so, but the concept of follower notices and accelerated payment notices are, in fact, in this Bill and did not exist before.
The question is whether the provision is retrospective, because I believe that the Minister is on record—I think that it might be in writing—as saying that he does not agree with retrospective tax powers. I also understand that the Treasury Committee confirmed in a recent report that this is indeed retrospective and the Government are yet to explain what is wholly exceptional about the performance they have put in this Bill—the follower notices and the accelerated payment notices—that will justify the use of retrospective claims for taxation.
It seems to me that when someone is doing their tax planning, particularly when coming to that later period in life—quite a few Members of this House are in that age group—they look at the law at the time, take tax advice from advisers, make arrangements and do their tax planning accordingly, and that is what they think will be their future income. Those people tend not to be
receiving a pension paid by someone else; they are earning their pension by their own efforts and enterprises. If that advice is taken and their tax planning goes ahead, I want the Government to assure me that they will not then be told after this Bill is passed, “You made that arrangement in 2000, but we have decided that from 2004 that that tax planning, although legal then, is not legal, so we want you to pay a substantial amount of tax back that was not in the tax arrangements then.” I think that it is only just that the Government give people an assurance that they will not come seeking to turn what was a legal tax arrangement into an illegal one and cost them a substantial amount of money.