National Insurance Contributions (Rate Ceilings) Bill

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend has made a powerful point. Some of the sectors that are the most critical to the UK’s future success—aerospace, technology and life science, in which I have a particular interest—are international businesses that make huge bets on countries on a regular but long-term basis. Some predictability is therefore absolutely key.

My final point is about inflation. We are living in a financial atmosphere in which inflation will be of concern over the next five to 10 years, and we need to be careful to ensure that it does not get out of hand. We have been extremely successful in doing that so far. As I have said, national insurance forms a large part of prices. The Government—any Government—must bear in mind that if taxes rise, so do prices, over time. By injecting an element of freeze into the national insurance bill, we are also doing our bit to relieve whatever inflationary pressures may be generated in the economy.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman talks about inflation as if it were the danger, but the real danger at the moment is deflation. Japan has been struggling with deflation for a decade and more. There is a serious problem across the world caused by prices rising below the threshold deemed appropriate by central banks, especially in Britain, and in America, the threat of rising interest rates is terrifying the world that we may be plunged into another economic crisis. It is deflation that is the problem; inflation is not even on the horizon.

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman may have a point at the current time, but some of us are of an age to remember the destruction that was wreaked on the last generation by inflation. My grandparents’ pensions were destroyed by it. I hope he will forgive me for having an atavistic fear of it, a fear that it may, at any point, appear over the horizon. Anything that we can do to defray that fear, either now or in the future, will be welcome.

I support the Bill. I think that it is a good idea. I will vote for it first because of the certainty that it will bring for business, secondly because of the international signal that it will send, and thirdly because I think that anything we can do to bear down on any inflation, either now or in the future, will be extremely welcome.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

As the Minister said, the Bill will prevent any increase in the current rates of class 1, class 1A and class 1B national insurance contributions paid by employees and employers for the duration of the current Parliament. It will also provide that, for each year, the annual upper earnings limit cannot exceed the higher-rate threshold, which is the sum of the personal allowance and the income tax basic rate. All that is very sensible. There is nothing wrong, in principle, with any Government’s providing certainty in the tax code for the duration of their term in office. However, we clearly do not need legislation to do that.

As has already been said—so I shall say it only once—the Bill is a gimmick. It also demonstrates, in many ways, a lack of confidence. I shall say more about that shortly, but the key point is that placing such an arbitrary and unnecessary restriction on the Government’s ability to respond to unforeseen events may yet come back to haunt them.

The Bill results from the Finance Bill, which was published in July, and which provides for the tax lock on national insurance contributions, income tax and VAT. As was said earlier, it is intended to apply to a tax year that comes after the date of the Bill’s Royal Assent and before the first general election after that date. The time scope is therefore rather limited. There is also a technical issue. This is a separate Bill; the measures are not in the Finance Bill because statutory provisions for NI cannot be included in it.

However, none of this should be any surprise to us. The Conservative manifesto said that in government the Tories would not increase the rate of VAT, income tax or NICs in this Parliament. That should have been enough; the legislation is not required. In a speech ahead of the general election the Prime Minister confirmed that the tax lock also meant there would be no extension to the scope of VAT or any increase in the ceiling set for the main rate of NICs for employees.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned VAT and the lock that the Government propose. Does he agree it would have been more impressive if they had had that lock before they raised VAT from 15% to 20% rather than after?

[Stewart Hosie]

That is the kind of thing any Opposition politician should say about any set of Tory policy decisions that ends up with the kind of outcomes the hon. Gentleman describes.

The Government also committed to legislating within 100 days of the election to rule out increases in the rates, which is what we are seeing today, but of course serious unintended consequences for spending and for other taxes may flow from this measure. Let me explain. The Government laid out in the summer Budget discretionary consolidation—that is, cuts and tax rises to you and me—amounting to £97 billion in this Parliament. Of that, new draconian cuts to welfare amounted to a full third—£33 billion—but the entire spending plan was predicated on, among other things, NICs bringing in £115 billion this year, £126 billion next year, rising to almost £152 billion in 2021. That is a forecast rise in revenue yield from NICs of 9.6% this year to next, 4.3% the year after, 4.7% in 2017-18 to 20118-19, and a rise of over one third—£37 billion—between last year and the end of the forecast period.

One of the questions the Minister has to answer today is this: given the arbitrary freeze on NICs and some other rates, should the forecast yield be significantly less than expected, will other taxes rise and if so, which ones; and will the Chancellor take the axe to yet further spending, perhaps on pensions, or will borrowing rise and deficit reduction forecasts simply be abandoned, delivering exactly the same failure on debt and deficit we saw in the last Parliament?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stewart Hosie]

The £1.5 trillion black hole, which is the UK national debt, is of rather more significance than any cyclical deficit any country may have, but then I suspect the hon. Gentleman probably knew that already.

Returning to the scope of the Bill, it is important that the Minister says what will happen should the yield forecasts be less than planned. That is important for his Government, too, because their rationale, as stated in their manifesto, was focused on

“reducing wasteful spending, making savings in welfare and continuing to crack down on tax evasion and aggressive avoidance.”

That allowed them to commit to no increases in VAT, income tax or NICs. They argued:

“Tax rises on working people would harm our economy, reduce living standards and cost jobs.”

I have no problem with tackling genuinely wasteful spending, such as Trident, or clamping down on tax evasion, but it is this Government’s attack on welfare which is harming the economy, reducing standards of living and threatening the growth needed to ensure the forecast yield from NICs is maintained in the way the Red Book forecasts suggest.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I have a great deal of sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman has been saying. He mentioned the tax rises that have taken place which have brought the Government considerable increases in revenue, but does he agree that those taxes tend to be regressive and the one thing the Government are protecting is the progressive tax, which is much fairer, called income tax, which they have sought to reduce for high income earners?

[Stewart Hosie]

It is certainly the case that during the downturn the decision to remove the 50p rate of tax was wrong. We would certainly argue that in the current climate that 50p rate should have been maintained. In that respect at least, I agree with the hon. Gentleman.

I wish to raise at this point the Conservatives’ future plans to replace national insurance because that is pertinent to the measure under discussion. In July, the Financial Secretary commissioned the Office of Tax Simplification to review the interplay between income tax and NICs. He said:

“I would like the Office of Tax Simplification to look at what the impacts, costs and benefits of closer alignment would be and to set out what the necessary steps would be to achieve closer alignment. We believe greater integration of the two systems has the potential to remove economic distortions, reduce burdens on business, and improve fairness across individual earners.”

These are all sensible objectives, and I assume this is still a longer-term Government objective, so let me ask the Minister how this Bill assists in the delivery of that aim.

I said earlier in my contribution, and also in a debate on the financial statement in July, that the Chancellor promised a tax lock but that legislation to stop tax rises was

“just a gimmick and no one is going to buy it”—[Official Report, 8 July 2015; Vol. 598, c. 348.]

Indeed my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) made the same point:

“If these provisions are included in what”

is now this Bill today

“it will only take a clause”

in future legislation

“to overturn them. They are therefore literally not worth the paper on which they are written.”—[Official Report, 21 July 2015; Vol. 598, c. 1441.]

He was right, of course, and that ties in with what I said earlier about a lack of confidence.

Of the Bill that became the Labour Government’s Fiscal Responsibility Act 2010, where levels of debt and deficit were planned but there was no sanction if they were broken, the current Chancellor said that it would achieve

“a constitutional first of imposing no legal sanction on the person who is likely to break it. No other Chancellor in the long history of the office has felt the need to pass a law in order to convince people that he has the political will to implement his own Budget”—[Official Report, 26 November 2009; Vol. 501, c. 708.]—

until now.

Let me reprise that for this Bill. This is a constitutional second. Only one other Chancellor has felt it necessary to bring legislation before this House in order to convince people that he has the confidence to implement his own Budget. We saw Gordon Brown go from Joseph Stalin to Mr Bean; I fear the First Secretary may be reverting to a rather rusty clunking fist.

As has been said, a large number of stakeholders have contributed to this debate, and key from our point of view are the words of Howard Archer, chief European and UK economist at IHS Economics, who said that such a move would restrict the Chancellor’s ability to achieve his targets:

“In particular, if the public finances fall markedly short of their targets, the chancellor would have to face making even more spending cuts and/or raising other taxes. Or just accepting the missed targets. There really still needs to be a lot more clarity on the whole Conservative fiscal policy”.

That is absolutely right.

It is also worth noting the comments of Jonathan Portes from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. He said the pledge not to increase the main taxes

“considerably reduces our flexibility if things turn out different from expected. This is why I have absolutely no doubt that Treasury and Bank of England officials were tearing their hair out at this.”

What discussions, if any, have the Minister, the Chancellor or the Treasury had with the central bank about these proposals and the inherent lack of flexibility that they generate?

Let me turn now to some of my final questions. I ask Members to bear with me as I describe some of the complexity of the current NICs regime. Employees pay NICs on their earnings if they exceed the lower earnings limit, which is set at £112 a week. A zero rate of NICs is charged on earnings between the lower earnings limit and the primary threshold of £155 a week. Earnings above the primary threshold are charged NICs at a rate of 12%, subject to a cap on the upper earnings limit, which is set at £815 a week. Earnings above that are set at 2%.

Employers pay NICs on employee earnings at a rate of 13.8% on earnings above the secondary threshold, which, at £156 a week, is a difference of £1 from the primary threshold for employers. There is no ceiling on secondary class 1 NICs.

As everyone in the Chamber knows, self-employed people pay a weekly flat rate class 2 NIC. They may apply for an exemption from paying class 2 contributions if there are no profits, or if their profits are less than, or expected to be less than, £5,965 for the year. This replaced a small earnings exemption from April this year. In addition, they may be liable for separate class 4 earnings, and on it goes.

Tax simplification is a great idea, and we can see precisely why. Will the Minister explain how these proposals will make the NICs regime more straightforward? In addition to those categories, individuals may be entitled to make voluntary class 3 contributions to avoid or fill gaps in their NI record to ensure that they qualify for basic retirement pension and bereavement benefits. Does the Minister expect more or fewer people to make additional voluntary contributions as a result of the tax lock to the NICs described in the Bill, and will there be any encouragement for them to do so?

The majority of NICs receipts are paid into the national insurance fund, which is separate from all other revenue raised by taxation. The fund is used exclusively to pay for contributory benefits. If the revenue yield from national insurance does not rise in the planned heroic way that I described earlier, can we expect to see cuts directed at the contributory benefits that people have already paid for? There is often unintended consequence from any legislative change—and sometimes perfectly foreseeable behavioural change that may affect yield forecasts. That is an argument that Treasury Ministers have, from time immemorial, fallen back on when they are implementing bad decisions. What assessment have the Government undertaken to predict whether any negative behavioural change is likely to result from these measures, particularly given the differential in rates and thresholds between employee, employer and self-employed national insurance contributions?

Finally—this is really my most important question and at the heart of our disquiet over a legislative attempt to provide certainty over this Parliament—as the majority of NICs receipts are paid into the national insurance fund and that fund is used exclusively to pay for contributory benefits, may we have a cast-iron guarantee from the Minister today that this Bill is not and will not be the start of an attack on, or an erosion of, the contributory principle that applies to national insurance contributions?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker, for having to leave the debate for a short while, but I managed to catch the major part of the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman). It was an excellent speech and I agree with every word of it, but I did not know that she was half Danish. I want to say something about Denmark, a very sensible country with a more appropriate taxation system than we have. As the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) said, would Members prefer to live in Denmark or Mexico? I know which I would choose; Denmark is clearly a more sensible country.

I have been to Denmark on a couple of occasions and it does two very sensible things. First, the Danes have retained their own currency, which is sensible, but they also seek to manage its value, which we do not, and that is also sensible. One result of the Danes’ sensible taxation system is that they can sustain students without fees but with grants until the age of 25. A few years ago, I understand, the average class size in schools in Denmark was 15. No wonder they have advantages that we do not; they are prepared to pay for them—[Interruption.] I shall talk about national insurance, but I wanted to mention the sensible country of Denmark, which I so admire, before I started.

The lock on the taxation system is a gimmick, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) has said from the Front Bench. Surely a promise from the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be appreciated, understood and believed by the business sector. A Conservative Chancellor making a promise is enough. This Bill is like saying, “I promise not to rob the bank any more, but do put the handcuffs on me.” He is clearly not a bank robber, but does he need to have those handcuffs on him just to do what he believes to be the right thing? He has given away flexibility in any case, and I certainly would not do that, because we cannot foresee what will happen.

There is a real possibility, for example, of another financial crisis coming down the road. I mentioned in my speech on the Budget forecasts that there will be another serious economic crisis in the not-too-distant future. Precisely when that will happen, we do not know, but we ought to retain flexibility with all the economic levers at our disposal to ensure that Britain is protected if that happens.

In the previous crisis, the British Government, led by Gordon Brown, persuaded the world to recapitalise the banks. If we had not done that, the whole financial system might have collapsed and we would have been in a much worse situation. I am not saying that I agree with everything that my former right hon. Friend did, as I was often a critic of our policies. Nevertheless, that had to be done, even though in a sense it rewarded the gamblers who had gambled away our future and made our lives so much more difficult. Those difficulties continue today, but it was the bankers gambling on the free financial markets who caused the problem. It was nothing to do with the Labour Government, and, indeed, all sorts of economists say that Labour did the right thing when the crisis happened.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

We are wandering rather further from the topic of the debate than I would like, but how would the hon. Gentleman explain the consistent deficits we ran from 2001, as the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) suggested? We were in deficit every single year for the last nine years of the Labour Government.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I can only refer the hon. Gentleman to the excellent article by the economist Ben Chu, which goes into detail showing why Labour was not to blame and was not responsible. The crisis caused the deficits, but if we had not recapitalised the banks, where would we be now?

Let me go back to the instability mentioned by the hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), who is no longer in his place. He talked about businesses wanting stability. Instability arises because of the globalisation of financial markets. Before 1979, we managed financial markets with exchange controls. The breakdown of the Bretton Woods agreement is what caused the problems.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

The hon. Gentleman is completely right to say that this is purely a gimmick by the Government. There is no need for a legislative vehicle to enact this policy; the announcement could be made in a Budget statement or an autumn statement, as appropriate. Does he agree that, if the Government were serious about helping working people, and people on low incomes in particular, they would increase the threshold at which national insurance contributions kick in to the level of personal allowances for income tax, rather than implementing the pure gimmick of this Bill?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

That would certainly be one way of dealing with it, but I think that not cutting tax credits, which are coming up for debate this afternoon, would be a much more important way of helping people on low incomes. We should certainly do that.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman, as ever, is gracious in giving way. He suggests that the Labour Government were not responsible. Surely, bankers are driven by the incentives in the global markets he described to make money and the job of Government is to regulate those markets so that they benefit the public and do not poison the public well. On that fundamental duty, including the dismantling of the previous Bank of England supervision regime, the Labour Government failed.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I have to agree with the hon. Gentleman, but the great deregulation occurred in 1979 with the abandonment of exchange controls. During the period of the New Labour Government, I was one of those who called constantly for reregulation rather than deregulation. I was out of step with my colleagues at the time, but I think we have now learnt a lesson and believe in more regulation. I certainly look forward to a more regulated economic world in the future, and if we have another crisis, I believe that regulation will come back.

I ought to get on to the question of national insurance contributions, as those comments were by way of a preamble to my speech. The suggestion has come from the Conservative Benches that we should abandon national insurance contributions and merge them with the tax system. That has been discussed over some time and I have flirted with the idea myself, but I have come down against it. I believe that although there should be a threshold so that people on very low incomes do not pay national insurance contributions, they reinforce the sense of all of us paying into a system and having a sense of entitlement to what the system can do for us when we are in need.

Tying us all into a system on a relatively equal basis for at least part of the income revenues is important. We pay national insurance contributions and we therefore have a right to pensions, the health service and so on. There is clearly not enough and much more has to be paid out of other forms of taxation. I prefer the more progressive forms of taxation, income tax being the most important, and I regret that income tax rates at the higher end have been cut pretty savagely since 1979. I remember the 1988 Budget, when Nigel Lawson cut the top rate from 60% to 40%. I had lunch in the City shortly afterwards with a number of City people, and they were amazed by it. They had watched the Budget on television and asked, “Why has he done this? We don’t need the money.” That is what people in the City were saying about the cut in the top rate of tax. I have no doubt that there are some people in the world who are so greedy that they want even more money, despite having millions already, but most people think that having a high rate of tax for the very highest earners is a good and progressive thing.

[Graham Stuart]

The hon. Gentleman must have seen the figures. Every time the higher rate of tax was cut, the amount paid by the richest, in both absolute and relative terms, went up. The truth is that Governments receive more money when they impose fair taxation and less when they follow the policy that he is advocating.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, but the fact is that successive Governments have failed to ensure that the rich pay their taxes properly. We have a tax gap of £120 billion a year. The fact that fewer people might fiddle their finances is not an argument for reducing the top rate of tax. We ought to have a proper regime for enforcing tax payment by those who get away with it: the corporates and the billionaires who manage to avoid and evade tax on a massive scale. If we collected only a third of what is fiddled every year, we would have another £40 billion a year to spend. I think that we have failed on that because all Governments have opted for a light touch on the rich. That is the truth.

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Gentleman obviously has the inside track on the voice of the City—he has referenced lunches he has had in the square mile—so could he illume the House on what the City’s view is on the new policies of his right hon. Friends who now occupy the Opposition Front Bench?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I must say that I have not had lunch in the City recently. Indeed, my contacts with City people have not been of the highest order since 1998. I once had lunch with the Governor of the Bank of England, shortly after being elected, and very enjoyable it was too. That was when “steady Eddie” was in charge—he was a splendid Governor and I am sorry that he is no longer with us.

I believe that there are ways of ensuring that we collect the taxes that are due from the rich. Personally, I believe that I should pay more income tax, along with everyone else on my kind of salary—I earn £74,000 a year. Indeed, the majority of the population have said that they would be happy to pay a little more tax in order to help our health service, which is still seriously underfunded.

I believe that national insurance contributions set at a modest level are an important part of our tax and revenue-colleting system. It gives us all a sense of collectivity, which I think is right. We call that the contributory principle. It means that we have a sense of duty in paying taxes as well as a sense of entitlement in receiving what they pay for. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland, who is no longer in her place, on the upper earnings limits.

VAT is a regressive tax. It was noticeable that Gordon Brown, when Prime Minister, cut VAT from 17.5% to 15%, which boosted demand at the moment that was needed and, together with a substantial depreciation of sterling, helped to keep the economy relatively stronger than some other economies. We have since survived, but I think that we are now making a mistake in allowing sterling to appreciate. It has moderated a bit in recent weeks, but it is still far too high, and manufacturing is suffering as a result.

I understand that the Opposition are going to acquiesce in what the Government are proposing today, but I agree entirely with the view put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland. I look forward to my party coming into government next time around with our new leader committed to ensuring that the rich, the corporates and those who have been getting away with it for years pay their taxes so that we can build a decent society on the revenues that they should provide.

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), although I felt as though I was entering a time warp when listening to his speech; it is a long time since I have heard anyone defend exchange controls. I believe that the limit on the amount of money that someone could take out of the country was £50, and they had to declare everything else. Given the current political climate, it is very interesting to hear a Labour Member advocate such a policy.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

rose—

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am happy to give way this once.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kelvin Hopkins]

It was a temporary limit imposed on holidaymakers by Harold Wilson, but most had no problem spending money abroad. What we did was ensure that the bankers and international speculators did not have free rein.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am glad to hear that everything was all right because it was Harold Wilson who imposed the limit, which I think was £40.

Of course this is a sensible Bill. Of course it makes sense to limit national insurances contributions, because they are, after all, as has been pointed out, a tax on jobs. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), who is no longer in his place, made an excellent point about the things we do here being a signal to people outside, such as investors, potential entrepreneurs and people who want to set up businesses. If the Government get the Bill through, I am confident that it will send a very good signal to people who want to invest in the British economy and in our constituencies and who want to set up small businesses.

My constituency of Spelthorne is very near Heathrow airport and lies on the Thames, and it is a case in point. It is an area where small business and private enterprise is at the core of people’s way of life. It is the basis on which people go to work, save and plan for their retirement. Essentially, they are people who are driven and motivated by small business. Therefore, a Bill that caps national insurance tax is an excellent development that will be warmly appreciated across my constituency.

We have heard a number of arguments this afternoon that simply do not make sense. On the one hand, we have heard from Labour Members that the Bill is a gimmick and that it is wrong. On the other hand, they have said that they will support it. Indeed, we have also heard that they were apparently the first people to come up with that gimmick. It seems very odd. I am still utterly confused about their position.

The hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) made a very good point, but I recall that before the general election his party was the biggest deficit denier—it was even worse than the Labour party in denying the deficit and ranting against austerity. It is a very confused picture. I would be very interested to see what the SNP will do if the House divides on the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gauke]

I understand why the shadow Minister does not want to defend the position of the current leader of the Labour party, but let me make this point clear. The Prime Minister came into office in 2010 with a mission to turn around the UK economy. He succeeded and was re-elected with a majority in 2015.

The hon. Member for Luton North always makes entertaining and thoughtful speeches. I noted that he praised the tax system of Denmark, but I would point out that its VAT rate is 25% and it does not have any lower rates. I can assure him that we will not follow Denmark’s example and put VAT up to 25%.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I would be happy if the Danes lowered their VAT rate, but can the Minister tell us what Danish income tax rates are?

[Mr Gauke]

I do not have all the numbers in front of me, but I take it from the hon. Gentleman’s remarks that he would like to put income tax rates up, not down—[Interruption.] Well, I know he is very close to the Labour leadership and I suspect that he may prove to be an influential figure in deciding policy.

I am delighted that we do not appear to be divided on this measure, even though we heard some doubts about it from Labour Back Benchers. I am grateful to hon. Members for their contributions. This is an important part of the Government’s long-term economic plan, providing certainty and stability to the taxpayers of this country. I am pleased that we are making progress on providing that certainty and stability, as well as protecting the British people from tax increases, at least for the course of this Parliament and—we hope—future years as well.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

NATIONAL INSURANCE CONTRIBUTIONS (RATE CEILINGS) BILL (PROGRAMME)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),

That the following provisions shall apply to the National Insurance Contributions (Rate Ceilings) Bill:

Committal

(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.

Proceedings in Public Bill Committee

(2) Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Tuesday 27 October 2015.

(3) The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.

Consideration and Third Reading

(4) Proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.

(5) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.

(6) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading.

Other proceedings

(7) Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments or on any further messages from the Lords) may be programmed.—(Charlie Elphicke.)

Question agreed to.