Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Razzall Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, who knows to what the funds would have been devoted before the scheme was created? That is the answer to the point about whether the scheme leads to more efficient tax planning of a kind that leads to real income being forgone, not just additional income that might be generated from these contracts.

To conclude, by removing this clause we will be saving the Chancellor from himself; we will be saving the Government from themselves; we will be doing our basic duty as a revising Chamber; but, more importantly than any of this, we will be protecting decent hard-working people from the unfairness and humiliation of being stripped of basic rights at work. Our duty is clear.

[Lord Razzall]

My Lords, I was hoping to precede the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, but he was too far out of his trap, and I am sure that he wanted to speak immediately before the Minister. It is not often that we have the perils of coalition government being laid as bare as it has been in the House this afternoon. It is particularly refreshing to see that the strains in the coalition are not just among the Liberal Democrats. I sometimes wish that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, had been in his place this afternoon to see that it is not only the Liberal Democrats who cause problems within the coalition discussions.