Finance (No. 3) Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Peter Dowd and Robert Syms

Committee Debate: 9th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Sir Robert Syms]

I come back to my basic point that there are certain matters of principle that are good for parliamentary debate, and there are minor, technical matters, such as those dealing with the Inland Revenue. I am not sure that debating the latter would bring much to the sum of human happiness. I also make the point that, although the Conservative party does not enjoy a majority in the House of Commons, the Scottish National party does not enjoy a majority in the Scottish Parliament, so we are all sort of in the same boat.

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point about technical matters and grander principles. However, given that the Government have not allowed us to amend the law in any significant way, the Committee is left at this point poring over the detail—the grander principles are being brushed aside by the Government. We are unable to scrutinise the Bill at the grander level or at the specific level.

[Sir Robert Syms]

The hon. Member makes his own point. We have discussed Budgets and Finance Bill Committees before. The Bill has been on the Floor of the House and will go back there. There will be endless debates, and I am perfectly sure that he and his formidable Front-Bench team will be able to make their points when the Bill goes back to the House. Ultimately, the Government have taken a perfectly pragmatic view, and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

Finance (No. 3) Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Peter Dowd and Robert Syms

Tuesday 27th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Peter Dowd]

My hon. Friend has a laser-like focus. In that regard, the Government cannot have it both ways. They cannot tell us that, on the one hand, we are dealing with all these technical issues and we should not be dealing with those wider issues, hence the amendment of the law, but in the same breath tell us that we cannot have any face-to-face consultation or oral evidence.

I give credit to the Government in so far as they have consulted pretty widely on these matters, but I have been involved in lots of consultations that have been paper exercises. I do not mean that lightly—they have been genuine attempts at consultation where people have written in to express this or that view—but during the process, I have certainly been in situations where we have decided, in the light of the evidence that we have and of the information provided to us through that consultation process, that we were going to say, in an open and transparent fashion, “Okay, let’s stop. We have all this consultation. We’ve read it. We’ve listened to it. Why don’t we just tease it out a bit more with some of the people who have taken the time to write back to us?” Organisations have indicated to us that they would welcome evidence sessions. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North has indicated some people we could see, but there are lots more. Frankly, we could have three days of evidence sessions, which would not be a bad thing per se. The idea that we focus it down to one day, with the organisations that hon. Lady has identified, is not, in the grand scheme of things, a difficult process, issue or onus. I exhort the Government to listen carefully to what we have said in the genuine spirit of trying to make this a better Bill. There may be agreement and we may have a better Bill where there is no agreement. I exhort the Government to listen carefully and accede or acquiesce—not capitulate—to our request.

[Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

I have just a few points about where we are going. There are a number of events in Parliament that get quite a lot of public interest; the Queen’s Speech is normally one and the Budget is another. People make representations to the Treasury in advance of the Budget, but afterwards the Financial Times and almost every insurance company, bank and accountancy firm produce reams of information on what changes have occurred. The one sure thing about the Budget is that a number of trees will be cut down, to supply information to the great British public on what changes have already occurred. Actually, I do not think that this is one of those Committees that needs to take lots of information, because most of us will have lots of information already.

One could substitute vested interests for the point about experts, because there are an awful lot of vested interests in this country. As a large Committee of the House of Commons, we sometimes have to navigate our way through that, so we could sit for months listening to vested interests on a whole range of subjects and not actually make any decisions. The purpose of this Committee is to look at what the Government have done, maybe make some decisions and then report back to the House.