Taxation (Post-transition Period) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-12-15
Topic: Macroeconomics
Patrick Bosco McFadden (Labour, Centre-left): It is a pleasure, as always, to follow the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash). I rise to speak to new clause 3 in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, and, with it, amendments 1 and 2, which are also in his name and the names of my right hon. and hon. Friends. These amendments are pro-business and pro-compliance. They are motivated by trying to get as much information to the businesses affected by the changes in this Bill in as short a timescale as possible The Bill that we are discussing sets out a number of taxation changes, many of them as a result of the Northern Ireland protocol. These measures will have an impact on businesses throughout the United Kingdom, but in particular, businesses in Northern Ireland and those who trade with them. In a recent evidence session for the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, HMRC was asked how many new declarations there would be under the kind of system set out in the Bill. The official giving evidence said, to be fair, that it was a new system, so they could not be sure, but that there could be about 11 million new declarations a year. That is a sizeable additional amount of information that businesses have to publish The amendments we are putting forward this afternoon try to help those businesses to cope with the changes set out in the Bill. I should stress that nothing in these amendments alters the terms of the changes set out in the clauses or the purpose of the Bill. The Government have signed up to the protocol and we want to see them abide by the agreement they have made. There may be those in the Conservative party—in fact, there almost certainly are—who do not like the obligations that the protocol entails, but we believe that the Government should stick by the commitments they have made. The changes in the Bill are largely, though not entirely, a consequence of that agreement However, many of the clauses in the Bill are enabling in their nature. They confer on the Treasury powers that are to be filled in at a later date. For example, clause 1 says that the Treasury may by regulations provide a definition of goods being imported into Northern Ireland that "are at risk of subsequently being moved into the European Union." It goes on to talk about which duties shall apply in the case of these so-called at-risk goods. Very similar language is used in clauses 2 and 5 and a number of the schedules—that the "Treasury may by regulations" provide To be fair to the Minister and to the authors of the Bill, there is nothing unusual about a Bill taking enabling powers that are then to be set out in further detail in regulations that come after the Bill has passed its parliamentary proceedings, but what is unusual is the context and the timescale involved. The end of the transition period is in just 16 days and, in the middle of those 16 days comes the Christmas holidays, so the Government are asking businesses to absorb, prepare for and comply with a new series of taxation regulations that those businesses have not yet seen, and to do so over a two-week period coinciding with the biggest holiday of the year. And they are doing that at the end of a year in which the very same businesses have already faced unprecedented turbulence in the wake of a global pandemic The businesses concerned do not want to fall foul of regulations. They want to comply. They want to be able to get this right. Businesses in Northern Ireland and the trade bodies that represent them have put in enormous efforts over the past few years to try to prepare for this moment. Of course, they could have spent all that time and effort doing what they were set up to do, which is to provide goods and services to their customers, but the process of Brexit and the specific circumstances of Northern Ireland, which are now enshrined in the Brexit withdrawal deal, have meant that a great deal of effort has had to go into trying to understand the trading and taxation rules that will kick in after the end of this year. So here we are with this Bill, with just over two weeks to go. With the best will in the world, how do the Government expect them to do this on this kind of timescale The purpose behind the amendments is very simple: it is, even at this late stage, to encourage the Government to get a move on. When I moved a similar amendment in Committee last week, the Minister said that guidance had been published in October, but that is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about the details of the regulations enabled by this Bill, which was published only last week The Minister cannot seriously be telling the House that everything covered by the Bill was dealt with in October, and there is nothing more to add. If that was the case, it would prompt the question as to why it was published only last week. The answer, of course, is that the Government wanted to use it to hold the threat of the kind of provisions that the hon. Member for Stone has just been talking about over the trade negotiations—a damaging and self-defeating tactic.