Oral Answers to Questions
David Davis Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Jesse Norman
If there are people who are illegitimately taking advantage of loopholes in the rates, I am of course happy to discuss that. I remind my hon. Friend that there may well be circumstances in which people are in fact complying with the rules. It is a fiddly area, and I want to be certain that we are going after the people we should be going after.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)
My right hon. Friend will know that taxpayers with loan charge liabilities can already defer submission of their tax return until 30 September this year. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has always worked very hard to support taxpayers who may need to help to managed their disguised remuneration liabilities, and this is no exception. HMRC will continue to offer people the time they need to settle, and of course that also applies to those who are affected by issues related to coronavirus.
Mr Davis [V]
In September this year, we will be in the middle of the recession that we are about to face. Given the hundreds of billions of pounds that the Treasury has already committed to supporting business to get us out of this recession, it would take a relatively trivial amount to write off the damaging loan charge policy. Originally, the Treasury forecast that it would raise £3.2 billion from the policy, and less than £2.5 billion from employees. What does the Minister estimate he will now raise?
Jesse Norman
The Treasury will have published its estimate at the time the original tax information was published. I understand the passion that my right hon. Friend brings to the issue, but I would remind him that 99.8% of taxpayers do not engage in disguised remuneration schemes, and the fact that we are supporting people across the country in their jobs and their livelihoods is not, in and of itself, a reason to let people who owe tax off the tax that is due.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Davis Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
The Minister will be aware that he could replace and upgrade every piece of rolling stock in the country for less than half the price of High Speed 2. Why do we not just cancel this white elephant and give the public something that they want?
Andrew Jones
I say to my right hon. Friend that we are doing both. We are replacing the rolling stock in our country and delivering HS2, which is what we need to deliver more capacity in our rail market.
Responsible Parking (Scotland) Bill
David Davis Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
I rise to speak briefly on three fundamental issues. First, I am a lawyer. Secondly, I am concerned about the Scottish referendum. My constituency borders Scotland and I have spent an awful lot of time there over the past nine months trying to make the case for the Union. I will be going back there on 18 September, as many colleagues will, to continue to fight for the Union. Thirdly, in a former life as a barrister, for my sins, I was adviser to the Automobile Association on all matters parking. I had input into the Government’s consideration of wheel clamping and various other grave and weighty matters, which shows what an eminent and stellar legal practice I had before the good burghers of Hexham elevated me to a proper place for the conduct of legal studies.
My previous experience dates back to Vine v. London borough of Waltham Forest, the test case on parking that was conducted all the way up to the Court of Appeal. The hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) has made great efforts to introduce the Bill. He spoke of the ability of those who are concerned with parking matters to take litigation to the nth degree. I went all the way to the Court of Appeal on a disputed judgment and received a 2:1 decision from their lordships over the princely sum of, I believe, £40, so I do not underestimate the power of the courts and litigants to take such matters to the nth degree.
That is why I have concerns about the hon. Gentleman’s proposal. I speak for myself and cannot speak for those who represent various bits of Yorkshire and other places besides—
Guy Opperman
Obviously.
My concern is that the hon. Gentleman is seeking to take a course of action in the House 10 days before the referendum. The powers we have given in the Scotland Act 2012 are supposed to have devolved the very same powers that he seeks to pass in the Bill. In addition, even more powers will go to Scotland if the referendum is successful. With great respect to him, that is a recipe for disaster.
If I can speak up for my former profession, if there is ever such a thing as a lawyers’ charter, it is passing a Bill in one House of Parliament when another House of Parliament seeks to claim that it has priority. The laudable objective of outlawing the sort of parking that seems wrong to many people would be mired in the courts on an issue of constitutional law—it is hard to believe that parking matters could go to the higher courts, but I am living proof that it has happened on many occasions—and so the Bill might hamper the very objective it seeks. I have serious questions, therefore, about the legal and constitutional basis going forward.
Guy Opperman
That is the problem. In theory, if it concerned a Bill passed by this House, it would be determined by the High Court in this country, then the Court of Appeal and then the Supreme Court. However, were one to be litigious and difficult—and Lord knows there are plenty of organisations that are—one could say, “No, this is a matter for the Scottish House and Scottish courts”. There might then be judicial review of the power of this House to introduce the legislation, and we would have the bizarre situation where a court might assess the legal merits on two particular bases under two different bits of legislation. If some of the legal arguments are correct—the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith accepts that there are legal arguments against his proposal—they would undermine the legal and statutory basis of his Bill.
Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)
As a layperson, not someone with a legal background, I fully recognise some of the arguments the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) makes, but my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) is exactly right: for the last several years, there has been constitutional bickering and wrangling over who is responsible for this matter. I ask the few of us left in the Chamber: how many of us have not come across an awkward individual who, inadvertently or otherwise, has parked their vehicle in a way that prevents someone with a child in a pram or a pushchair or a disabled person in a wheelchair from getting along the footway? I fully appreciate the point made over the last 10 or 15 minutes, but it is surely an obstruction. Of course it is, but in Scotland, the wrangling goes on.
The Bill, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith, is all about determining where competence lies. It is abundantly clear that the Scottish Parliament want to do this, but the problem is in gaining the clarity, which I hope today’s debate will allow to happen.
Only last week, I was out one evening on the referendum trail—as I have been on most evenings, most afternoons and most mornings of late—when I came across a property that had a boundary wall, a footway and a grass verge. A guy had pulled his vehicle across that grass verge. By pure chance, a lady coming along the footway in the opposite direction to me was in one of these small, not very wide mobility chairs—so she got through. She said, however, “I’ve been lucky, haven’t I? If I’d been in a normal-sized one, I would have had to go on to the road”. That is pure inconsiderate driving—in fact, downright bad driving. We are living in an era, however, where this guy could not pull his vehicle into his driveway because there were another two vehicles there. This is happening more and more often. The issue is to a certain extent about road users being inconsiderate.
Mr David Davis
Forgive me, but I speak as an English, rather than as a Scottish, Member of Parliament. The issue is not—for many of us, I think—whether or not the legislation is generally a good idea; it is the confusion over why the Scottish Parliament cannot carry this out itself. What is stopping the Scottish Parliament; what is the confusion?
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Why would we want to give the Scottish Parliament more powers when it seems to be agonising at great length over issues as trivial as the one we are discussing today? I do not think it has demonstrated that it can be decisive and in control of events.
Mr David Davis
There is another way in which the Bill is a gift to the Scottish nationalist argument. No one has argued that this problem is unique to Scotland. Indeed, it occurs across the whole country. If the Bill were passed, it ought to be called simply the Responsible Parking Bill, rather than the Responsible Parking (Scotland) Bill. Why should Scotland be different in this respect?
Mr Chope
I agree with my right hon. Friend. I believe in the United Kingdom. I was lucky enough to be educated at a Scottish university, and I would like to think that my degree will still be regarded as a United Kingdom degree, rather than one from a foreign country. I have given my reasons for not thinking that the Bill is in a fit state to go further in the House.