My Lords, I support Amendment 162, proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. It would strengthen Clause 44, which is in a part of the Bill concerned with corporate offences of failure to prevent tax evasion. Failure to pay the right levels of tax due as an individual or as a corporate body hurts everyone. Having robust procedures in place to combat these offences is important. Some corporate entities will employ lawyers and accountants to minimise their tax liability, but where that steps over the line into tax evasion we have to be prepared to take swift action.
The clause so far will place a requirement on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to publish and prepare guidance, using the word “must”, which is not something we often see in government Bills—I have always thought parliamentary draftspersons preferred “shall”—but since it uses the word “must”, noble Lords can draw from that that great importance is implied about this guidance on the procedures. The idea is to help relevant bodies. The Bill then moves on and says,
“can put in place to”,
which negates the emphasis in the earlier part of the clause.
The amendment from the noble Baroness would place the right emphasis, saying that relevant bodies “shall have regard to” this important advice prepared by the Treasury and published by the Chancellor. The Government clearly thought it was important that companies should be aware of this advice. I hope they will tell us why they think their wording is sufficient and that that of the noble Baroness is not necessary in this case.