My Lords, I also start by welcoming the Minister to her new role. I thank her and her officials for having a useful meeting with us ahead of today. Let me say how pleased we are to have a Minister who is genuinely interested in this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, talked about the Minister’s previous involvement; I am sure that her knowledge and interest will lead us into a better place.
I will start with the two amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, Amendments 177 and 180, to which we offer our strong support. Clearly, all of us should embrace anything we can do to tackle tax abuse and tax avoidance. I hope the new Government—we are looking forward to hearing what they have to say—will prioritise this area.
My noble friend talked about Amazon, the lack of accountability and the kind of poor practice that is replicated by many companies, and gave a thorough explanation of why the legislation in front of us could be used to make a difference to cases of tax avoidance and abuse. I hope the Minister listened to those concerns seriously and considers whether this Bill is an appropriate vehicle to address them.
The noble Lord, Lord Fox, introduced a number of amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, to which I have added my name. I will not go into them in detail, only to say that we support incorporating evasion of criminal sanctions into the Bill. The failure to prevent bribery offences has been incredibly disappointing, and the Bill could be used to tighten that up and make more progress. Also clearly disappointing are the very few convictions there have been under the Proceeds of Crime Act. How can we use this Bill to make a difference in these areas where there is still concern? I am sure all noble Lords agree that we need to ensure proper and effective enforcement to curb any serious wrongdoings in these areas.
Briefly on Amendments 323, 326 and 327, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, she clearly introduced something that I had not really considered until I read these amendments. Again, “considered” is the important word here. She is absolutely right that you need to think about the strength of a subjective test and how it would be interpreted. I completely agree with her; we need to understand this better. I would be interested to hear from the Minister on this, because the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, is correct that judicial review is simply not a practical option for SMEs; it just is not. How will this be interpreted and managed through the Bill? I look forward to the Minister’s responses.