Wales Bill

Lord Richard Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, whom I have known personally and respected for many years. I strongly support Amendment 20 which provides the key to securing a marked and rapid increase in the number of young people registered to vote. Time and again, the need for effective action to tackle the acute problem of underrepresentation among the young has been highlighted, not least in the reports of the Hansard Society of which I have the privilege to be a trustee.

Across the House we support the marvellous organisation Bite the Ballot, which is bringing determination and dedication to the task of getting many more young people on to the register, as we have heard. Surely we must give the organisers of Bite the Ballot the tools they need for this vital job. Nothing, it tells us, is more important than the creation of a sustained and lasting partnership between electoral registration officers and schools based on the model developed in Northern Ireland. We have heard today from my noble friend Lord Roberts and others that this is the wish of the Welsh Assembly, too.

The case for such a partnership is surely overwhelming—it has been proved beyond all doubt in Northern Ireland. The Province has pointed the way. As a staunch unionist, I say: let Wales, and indeed the rest of the country, follow where Northern Ireland has led. It would be a tragedy if the United Kingdom as a whole failed to reap the benefits of what has been pioneered in Northern Ireland—a point that I hope my noble friend on the Front Bench would be particularly sympathetic towards, given her dual responsibilities in Wales and Northern Ireland, and I am quite convinced that St Edward the Confessor would be on our side.

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

My Lords, perhaps I may say a brief word. Following the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, I should perhaps declare an interest. First, I am Welsh; secondly, I am a lawyer; and, thirdly, I am not a Methodist minister but my grandfather was, so I suppose that that qualifies me to speak on this amendment. I do so for one basic reason, which is to assure the Government that there is very warm cross-party support in the House for these amendments. When the Minister replies, I hope that we shall not hear, as we have on many occasions on the Bill so far, that this is not the right time to do it. It seems to me to be absolutely the right time to do it. Indeed, if you are looking for a better time to do it, it will be difficult to find one. With elections looming for the Assembly in 2016, it seems to me absolutely right that we should go down this route now.

The desirability of the amendments is perfectly clear. What is proposed is not based upon anything fanciful; it is based upon practical experience of the way that it has worked in Northern Ireland. There is also some evidence in the United States that this type of approach is effective, and I cannot see for the life of me any reason why it should not be introduced in Wales in time for the next election. I hope that the Minister is not going to get up and say merely that it is not the right time to do it; I believe that the House thinks that it is.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Wales Office (Baroness Randerson) (LD)]

My Lords, there must be, and clearly is, concern across the Chamber about the low engagement of young people in particular with our democracy and with civic life. However, I have to make the point to noble Lords that registration in itself does not mean that young people vote. Experience in Northern Ireland—and, as my noble friend Lord Lexden made clear, I am very familiar with that experience—has shown that voting does not necessarily follow from registration. Therefore, I think that we have to work very hard at what is a complex issue which goes beyond simply having to ensure, quite rightly, that more people vote.

[Lord Richard]

Before the noble Baroness leaves that point, it is perfectly true that if you register, you do not necessarily vote, but it is also true that if you do not register, you cannot vote. With great respect, we are talking here about the qualifications for voting.

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[Lord Richard]

My Lords, I support my noble friend on this. I am not a tax lawyer and I have given thanks for that ever since I was called to the Bar. I am bound to say that I read this new section with incredulity. It is designed to cover a Scottish parliamentarian as well as a Welsh parliamentarian—Mr Mac ap Jones, I suppose we can call him. That individual is covered here in such a way that it is a masterpiece of almost Proustian complexity. Even for one who is reasonably familiar with looking at legislation, I found it almost impossible to understand. I did what my noble friend did and went to the Explanatory Notes, but they are almost impossible to understand, too. Why on earth are we legislating in this way? Some 40 years ago, I was a member of a committee presided over by the late Lord Renton on the drafting of legislation. It was an interesting committee and we said that the practice of legislating by cross-reference meant that you had to have half a dozen books open at the same time to get even a glimmer of understanding of the subject. We said that that was bad and something should be done about it. Of course, successive Governments said, “Yes, we agree entirely that it should be changed”, but it never is. It just seems to get worse as time goes on—until we arrive at the nonsensical drafting that appears in this Bill.

Perhaps I may make a simple suggestion to the Minister. It is obviously designed to deal with a person who may be working in one jurisdiction and has residency in another. It is meant to make sure that the person does not pay two lots of tax in two different jurisdictions. Why can we not have a simple residence test? I would suggest tentatively that the Minister should look at proposed new Section 116E, which states at the end of page 9:

“For any year, a Welsh taxpayer is an individual”,

and thereafter it sets out an enormously complicated structure. Why can we not say that in any tax year, a Welsh taxpayer is an individual who is resident in Wales? We could have similar rules for Scotland, England and Northern Ireland. With any luck, Mr Mac ap Jones would be successively reinterred and we need not bother about him again. Really, the way this has been drafted is too much. I agree totally with my noble friend that perhaps it is time for this Committee to say, “We do not like this drafting. We don’t understand the purpose of it, and we think it could be simplified so that people can understand it. The Government should take it away and try again”.

[Lord Wigley]

I want to join briefly with colleagues who have raised these points. Over many years I have often heard the argument made that matters of substance are passed through Parliament by order—by secondary legislation and so on. Here we have the reverse position, where there are matters that should surely be set out in orders. Ministers should be empowered to introduce orders to deal with a variety of circumstances that certainly do not warrant taking up the face of the Bill. If that were the case, there would be flexibility within the orders to deal with other cases which possibly have not been thought of. Putting this in the Bill in this way is surely a nonsense.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Randerson]

He was an MP and an MSP in the same tax year. I am pretty certain I am right, but the principle is that he moved from Wales to Scotland, straight from one job to the other.

[Lord Richard]

Is it not absurd that we should be legislating in this way for one person? Is it not absolutely ludicrous? Has there been a flow of parliamentarians across the borders in this way, or is it just this one individual? The Minister, with great respect, should take these measures back and look at them again and, if she wants to, simplify them and bring them back.

[Baroness Randerson]

This has been through the whole scrutiny process in relation to Scotland. If noble Lords wish to blame someone, I suggest they blame the Scots. They sat in here and in the other place and thought up a lot of complexities that had to be answered in the case of both this Bill and the Scotland Act. Just for the sake of clarification—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Randerson]

That is a perfectly valid point, but we have it here in the Bill. I am also very conscious of the fact that noble Lords constantly complain that there is not enough in the Bill and that there should be more on its face and less in orders for the sake of transparency. On this occasion, you have total transparency. There is also, of course, the argument that we are talking about tax rules for individuals. In fact, if you have more on the face of the Bill, that could be said to be easier for individual taxpayers to follow.

May I finally make it absolutely clear to noble Lords that the noble Lord’s amendment would, in fact, mean taking away the simple test—which is the test, if you have only one home, of where your closest connection is—and replacing it with everyone counting days? Counting days is one way of dealing with it but not the simplest one. For most people, the simple thing is to ask, “Where is your home?” and, “Where do you spend most of your time?”. Taking away that option and leaving everyone counting days would possibly make life much more complex.

The noble Lord, Lord Richard, asked why not just say “resident in Wales”? I think noble Lords are well aware that the concept of where your residence is has caused a number of people a lot of trouble over the years. It is really important that we have clarity and absolute rules. There should be no doubt in people’s minds as to which rules they need apply.

[Lord Richard]

With the greatest respect to the noble Baroness, residence is a very well known concept in tax law. If you talk to taxpayers, particularly in areas such as the City of London, they know what their residence qualification is. They know that they have to establish a certain residence and that it is on the basis of where that residence is that they pay their tax. That is a much simpler concept than this.

[Baroness Randerson]

These rules flesh out what the term “residence” means in tax rules in relation to Wales. I hope noble Lords will accept that although the rules may not make pretty reading, they are workmanlike and, despite their complexity, they are clear, unambiguous and easy for people to follow.