Stephen Williams
Main Page: Stephen Williams (Liberal Democrat - Bristol West)Department Debates - View all Stephen Williams's debates with the HM Treasury
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Chris Leslie
The OBR is still bedding in. It has had a difficult time because on every autumn statement and Budget it has had to downgrade and revise its forecasts, upgrading the forecast for the deficit along the way, so one has to feel slightly sorry for it. There were some signs that its chairman was keen to chastise the Prime Minister and the Chancellor for overstating what was happening to public finances, so we wish it well for the future.
New clause 5 concerns the introduction of a 10p starting rate of income tax, funded by a mansion tax on properties worth more than £2 million, a policy that used to be advocated by the Liberal Democrat—
Chris Leslie
Apparently, it is still advocated by the Liberal Democrat, but Liberal Democrats tend to have a habit of voting against it whenever the opportunity presents itself. Those on low incomes have had their tax credits cut, their child benefit has been affected, and their wages and living standards have fallen, but millionaires on average benefit from a £100,000 tax cut. Surely it is time to help lower and middle-income households with an extra level of tax support, directed from revenues raised from a mansion tax on properties worth more than £2 million.
Alison Seabeck
That is a very interesting comment, is it not? In quoting it, my hon. Friend makes the point very clearly.
House building is falling, rents are rising, home ownership is becoming a harder goal for young families to achieve, and homelessness has risen. That, frankly, is not a record to write home about. This Budget measure, first, needs to be fully explained; secondly, needs to be fully scrutinised, which is why the new clause is important; and thirdly, shows that the Government have got their priorities wrong, because they need to be building more homes.
Stephen Williams
Thank you for calling me, Mr Hoyle. I am being called rather sooner than I imagined; indeed, I did not even necessarily imagine that I would be making a speech in full detail, but making use of my House of Commons Library notes I have hastily prepared something, particularly on new clause 5, which is a welcome innovation in many ways.
Andy Sawford
As the hon. Gentleman is not quite prepared to speak at the moment, perhaps I could help to give him some material for his response to the new clauses. Will he enlighten us on whether the Liberal Democrats might take this opportunity to support us in pushing forward a mansion tax, given that they did not do so last time?
Stephen Williams
I am happy to enlighten the hon. Gentleman, whose intervention falls into the category of a nice try. I think he is referring to the Opposition motion on this issue that we debated five or so weeks ago. The Government amendment to that motion made it crystal clear that, in the context of the coalition, my Conservative Front-Bench colleagues do not support the introduction of a mansion tax in this Parliament; indeed, it is not in the coalition agreement because we could not agree on it at that point. However, the Liberal Democrat part of the coalition does believe that a mansion tax should be introduced. We are happy to do the workings on it and happy to espouse it at every opportunity. It will be in our manifesto at the next general election, and subject to what happens in that election, when I am sure that negotiations may well take place again, perhaps we will have a different outcome. I welcome the fact that the Labour party, which emphatically rejected the principle of a mansion tax in the negotiations in 2010, now seems to be on the way towards conversion to the long-term Liberal Democrat train of thought on this issue.
I also hope that Conservative coalition colleagues might have a conversion between now and 2015. Some of them—in fact, a lot of them; we talk to each other rather more than we used to—whisper in my ear that they wished the Conservative party that embraced this policy. That applies particularly to Conservative MPs from the north of England—north of the line from the Severn to the Wash. Perhaps there are not very many £2 million properties in those constituencies. Nevertheless, a lot of Conservative MPs from outside the south-east of England have privately said to me that they wish the coalition would adopt this principle.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I know that the hon. Gentleman’s Library notes have been helpful, but I am not quite sure that the journey he is trying to take the Chamber on is relevant to this debate. I am sure that he wants to come back into order with his good Library notes.
Stephen Williams
Thank you, Mr Hoyle. Your advice is always given with good heart and accepted freely.
New clause 5 highlights the Labour party’s conversion to the principle of a mansion tax. I said that the new clause was an innovation. Unfortunately, I am a veteran of Finance Bills. I have obviously insulted my Whips Office on several occasions in the past and keep being put on to Finance Bills as a punishment. I remember from last year’s Bill that, time after time, Opposition new clauses and amendments called for studies of the impact of Government policy, while the Opposition proposed no new policies of their own. Now, finally, after three years, they have suggested a new policy, albeit one pinched from my party, but they are still asking the Treasury to do a study of it—even though it is they, not the Government, who proposed it—because the Labour party cannot be bothered to explain how this new policy that it has suddenly converted itself to will actually work.
The Opposition have not provided any clues as to how their approach might work, even though they have had plenty of opportunities to do so. The hon. Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) referred to the Opposition day debate five weeks ago, and the Labour party has since had plenty of opportunities to flesh out how its version of the mansion tax would work in practice. I had hoped that Labour Members would explain it to us today, but they have not.
New clause 5 does not provide many clues. Let me give those on the Opposition Front Bench a piece of advice: if they want to ask somebody else to assess the impact of their own policy, they really ought to give them a bit more detail to work on. I am sure that the Minister will confirm that those who work at the Treasury are very clever people. Among them are a lot of economists and accountants with good qualifications and excellent degrees from top universities, but the Labour party should not think that it can present them with an almost blank piece of paper, which new clause 5 is, and then expect them to be able to explain within a few months how its policy will work without their having been given the barest of details.
Chris Leslie
This is the thing with the Liberal Democrats—the hon. Gentleman is taking the biscuit. He is whipping himself up into a sense of righteous anger about his own policy, which we want to put on to the statute book. He is picking holes in a policy that he supposedly supported, but which he now cannot bring himself to vote for. Talk about a “push me, pull you” approach from the Liberal Democrats.
Stephen Williams
I assure the hon. Gentleman that I have righteous enthusiasm for the policy, because it is a Liberal Democrat policy that I have enthusiastically supported for the past three and a half years. How many weeks has he been an enthusiastic proponent of the mansion tax—10, 12, nine? How many weeks has the Labour party believed in this policy? When did he experience his conversion and accept the wisdom of the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, who first proposed this policy several months before the 2010 general election? I know that the hon. Gentleman was not a Member of Parliament at that time, but I assure him that his colleagues who were in government rubbished the policy during the general election and the coalition negotiations. For the first three years of this coalition Parliament, Labour did not support it, but now—lo and behold—it does. When was he converted?
Chris Leslie
I am intrigued by the hon. Gentleman’s line of argument. He is attacking us for agreeing with him. We might not have agreed with him several years ago, but now we feel that a mansion tax is necessary to help with a tax break for lower and middle-income families. Is it his argument that we are wrong for supporting a mansion tax? Is that really what he is saying?
Stephen Williams
My argument is straightforward: I do not know what the Labour party’s variant of the mansion tax would be. Moreover, the Labour party does not seem to know, either; otherwise, why on earth would it frame new clause 5 in a way that asks the Treasury to explain how it might work? We are in an extraordinary position. I know what my party’s policy is and am about to tell the hon. Gentleman exactly how a mansion tax would work, but I had hoped to hear from him a little more detail on how his version would work, so that the clever people at the Treasury could produce the study that he wants.
Jack Dromey
I want to ask the hon. Gentleman about something that he did vote for. In a week when the International Monetary Fund has said that the politics of austerity, of which his party is a strong supporter, are clearly not working, does he now regret voting in 2010 for a £4 billion cut in affordable housing investment, which led to a 68% collapse in affordable house-building and threw tens of thousands of building workers out of a job?
Stephen Williams
To answer the hon. Gentleman directly, when the coalition Government came to office they had to make some quick decisions about what was essentially an economic emergency. We were left with a situation in which the last Government were borrowing £1 for every £4 that they were spending. We simply could not go on in that way, so we had to put forward an emergency Budget to gain the confidence of the markets so that people would continue to lend us enough money, on the triple A rating that we had at the time, to keep all Government programmes going. It has been acknowledged by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and, I think, by the Deputy Prime Minister that some of the cuts in capital expenditure that the coalition implemented in its first two years in office perhaps should not have been made, in hindsight. But those cuts in the capital programme were in the last Budget of the last Government and were seen through by this Government. The Government have had the wisdom to say that investment in capital expenditure is a good way of getting growth going in the economy, and that is why we have had the wealth of initiatives that the shadow Minister mentioned earlier, and that is why we have had the new package of proposals to help the housing market.
Jonathan Edwards
I could not get an answer from the Labour Front Bench, but under the Lib Dem proposal would productive agricultural land be included in the estate for mansion tax purposes?
Stephen Williams
The mansion tax, as the name suggests, is a tax on mansions. If a farmhouse on agricultural land was of mansion proportions and, whether it was in Carmarthen or elsewhere, was valued at more than £2 million, it would fall within the scope of a mansion tax, but the agricultural land itself—whether it is in the curtilage of the house or in the wider area of the farm—would not fall within the remit of a mansion tax. However, my party is currently reviewing all its tax policies, including the taxation of land. I do not want to be diverted too far down this route, although it is an issue on which my party has campaigned since the days of Lloyd George, who, as I am sure hon. Members will agree, was probably the most significant Prime Minister of the 20th century. I will say no more on that on this particular day.
I will do my best to help the Labour party with some of the other details of how the Liberal Democrats think that the mansion tax should work. A criticism that is made of the mansion tax is what happens if a pensioner or someone on a low income is living in a house valued at more than £2 million—the so-called asset rich, but income poor. Our answer is straightforward. Someone in those circumstances would defer payment of the tax until the property was sold or their income rose to a level at which they were able to pay it. The most likely scenario is that when the property was sold, the deferred, rolled-up tax liabilities would crystallise and be met out of the proceeds of sale. That is the answer to the asset rich, income poor conundrum.
Another major principle, which might help the Labour party, is that we see the mansion tax as a national tax. There is a debate to be had about what we do with our only existing property tax—the council tax—such as introducing higher bands, but that is a debate for another day. In any event, the council tax is a local tax and we are clear that the mansion tax, as the Liberal Democrats propose it, should be a national tax and form part of the rebalancing of the tax system away from taxes on work and enterprise and on to income from wealth speculation and pollution.
Our principles on the mansion tax are well thought through. Unfortunately, they are not currently shared by enough of our Conservative coalition colleagues. Some share our enthusiasm for a mansion tax, but a majority—certainly ministerial colleagues—do not.
Daniel Kawczynski
The point made by the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) is important, and I was worried that the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) could not answer it as clearly as I would like. Farming is an essential part of many estates in Shropshire, and the land and agricultural buildings could tip them over the limit. Shropshire farmers are struggling already with prices from supermarkets, and I am very concerned that, if this tax were introduced under those circumstances, they would be adversely affected.
Stephen Williams
The hon. Gentleman is essentially asking me a variant of the question asked by the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards). He mentions agricultural buildings. Clearly, a mansion tax is a residential property tax: a tax on the building that the landowner—the farmer, the rich individual or whoever—lives in. It would not include barns, pigsties and the other agricultural buildings to which he referred, even if they have a high value. This would simply be a tax on residential property occupied by a person, not farm animals or anyone else: only the farmhouse itself, or the estate house, would fall into the ambit of a mansion tax.
Coming directly to the problem with new clause 5, the poor clever people in the Treasury simply do not have enough detail to go on to produce this study within six months of the passage of the Bill. This is the opportunity for Labour Front Benchers to answer these questions. They can intervene as many times as they like. [Interruption.] If they are listening, of course. This is an opportunity for them to tell us how the Treasury is going to conduct this study. It really does need some more detail. Is Labour’s variant on the mansion tax a tax on the whole of the £2 million, or is it a tax on the excess of the £2 million? That is completely unclear from any of the speeches made by shadow Ministers, or from the motion. What is the base of the tax?
Chris Leslie
We based our proposal on the Liberal Democrat analysis that a mansion tax could be on the excess of £2 million of value, raising, I think the hon. Gentleman said, £2 billion. That was the basis on which we assume he has some deeper calculations, and I hope he can produce them and share them with the Committee, because it seems a sensible proposal.
Stephen Williams
That is very helpful, because that is the first time we have heard it. It is nice, too, to have an acknowledgement that the Opposition have based whatever they have said so far on statements from my party. I am grateful for that acknowledgement. They have been giving the impression that it is their policy, rather than a magpie policy stolen from the Liberal Democrat policy nest.
Chris Leslie
Given that I have helped to clarify that for the hon. Gentleman, will he now do the right thing and support his own policy in the Division Lobby today? It is very simple.
Stephen Williams
I always strive to do the right things; I am sure all hon. Members do. In the Opposition day debate five or six weeks ago, the Government amendment was so beautifully crafted by the people in the Liberal Democrat Whips Office and the Conservative Whips Office that I was able to vote for it. It said that the Liberal Democrats in the coalition support the principle of a mansion tax, but acknowledged the fact that the Conservatives in the coalition do not. When I voted for that motion, therefore, I was indeed voting to endorse the Liberal Democrat policy of a mansion tax.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because I am little perplexed. Is this not the first opportunity for the Liberals to have one of their policies adopted by a major party? It has not happened in the past two and a half years. Should he not be thinking that his best bet is to throw more things the Labour way, because the way things are going, that will be his only chance in the future?
Stephen Williams
The hon. Gentleman, whom I quite like and respect—a feeling not shared universally among his colleagues—tempts me to comment on what might happen in the 2015 general election, on what discussions might take place in its aftermath and on what we might say during it. In 2015, the Liberal Democrats will say that we favour a mansion tax, with all the details we have already put on the table. I intend to publish a short paper that might help—it might do the Treasury’s job for it, making the new clause unnecessary—and which will flesh out what I am talking about. He said that Labour might benefit from taking more policies from the Liberal Democrats. We are all in politics to see our ideals, principles and policies put into practice, and if Labour wants to adopt more Liberal Democrat positions, instead of always saying we are wrong, the public might welcome that more grown-up attempt at consensus politics.
Andy Sawford
I do not understand something about the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. He has justified not voting for his own policy five weeks ago on the basis of an artfully crafted—I think he used those words—Government amendment that allowed the Liberal Democrats to wriggle out of it. But today there is no such amendment. He has challenged, very assertively, the depth of our new clause. If he is so confident in the depth of his own policies, why have the Liberal Democrats not tabled a new clause that he could vote for today?
Stephen Williams
I am happy to reveal now that I will not be supporting new clause 5 in the Division Lobby. That should not surprise the hon. Gentleman. I will not be supporting it, because it is not about the principle of introducing a mansion tax. It asks for a study. It asks the Treasury to do some work. These are busy people, with important work to do, and I do not want to waste their time. We do not want them to waste their time finessing badly thought-through Labour party proposals.
Chris Leslie
On a point of order, Mr Hoyle. Is it not the case that only Government Members can table amendments to a Finance Bill that would increase a charge or a tax, and therefore, under the rules of the House, these sorts of reviews are the only device the Opposition have to suggest such a tax change?
Stephen Williams
Of course, that is broadly correct, but I repeat that if the shadow Minister wishes new clause 5 to be implemented, he needs to provide more detail, so that the House can consider whether it is worthy of support. I do not think it worthy of support, because it is so full of holes. It would waste the time of the mandarins in the Treasury to ask them to come forward with a study for which they do not have the right brief. We have not been told at what rate the Labour party wants to set the mansion tax. Here is another opportunity for the Opposition to help the Treasury. Would the rate be 1%, 2%, 2.5%, 3%?
Stephen Williams
The shadow Minister says that it would raise £2 billion. [Hon. Members: “That’s your answer.”] Well, it is an answer, but it is not what is in the new clause. Why does the new clause not say, “Can we have a study from the Treasury on the best way to raise £2 billion?” It would be in order, would it not, Mr Hoyle, to put down a new clause asking the Treasury, “What is the best way to raise £2 billion?” The Labour party wants to raise £2 billion, but wants someone else to tell it how to do it.
Chris Leslie
I confess. Perhaps we could have mentioned the £2 billion. Will the hon. Gentleman forgive us to the point of at least abstaining on the new clause? Perhaps that is a compromise we can offer.
Stephen Williams
Abstention on certain issues is sometimes unfairly pooh-poohed by all parties. I have done it on certain issues. Indeed, abstention on a Bill that has a range of measures, some of which one likes and some of which one does not, is an entirely honourable thing to do, and Members from all parties will have done it. Although we would like to think that the Labour party has had plenty of time to craft a motion that might appeal to Liberal Democrats, I am afraid that in new clause 5 the Opposition have failed. They have again not managed to tell us how they think a mansion tax would work.
Mark Lazarowicz
The hon. Gentleman should stop digging and just say that the reason he will not support new clause 5 is that the Tories will not let him. If his position is that our proposal is not good enough, why does he not give an assurance that Lib Dem Ministers will work to bring forward more detailed proposals? They can do that now; after all, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is a Liberal Democrat.
Stephen Williams
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury is indeed a Liberal Democrat. I am sure my right hon. Friend has given this policy issue a great deal of careful thought with his advisers and I am sure that if he were standing where I am standing today, he would be making similar points to those that I am making.
There are two parts to new clause 5. As well as calling for a study of—we now know—how to raise £2 billion through a mansion tax, however ill defined the composition of that tax would be, it is also meant to fund a tax cut for millions of people on middle and low incomes, as part of a fair tax system. Again, that is simply not specific enough. We do not know what it means. I am guessing—I can guess, but it would not be fair for those in the Treasury to have to guess how they would have to do such a study—that the purpose is to fund the reintroduction of a 10p rate of income tax. That is my guess, but it is a well informed guess, because the Opposition’s amendment 4 to clause 3, which we will come to tomorrow, suggests that they want to reintroduce a 10p rate of income tax. Again, however, neither that amendment nor new clause 5 gives us any detail for how that would work or, for instance, to what income band it would apply.
Perhaps that it is because the history of the 10p rate is such a miserable memory for Labour Members. I remember the 2007 Budget, which was the last one the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) introduced, when he scrapped the 10p rate of income tax specifically to fund a reduction of the rate of income tax from 22% to 20%. However, the coalition Government have made the principle of the 10p rate of income tax completely redundant, because we have introduced not a 10p rate on people with very low incomes, but a zero rate. I am sure that most of our constituents, whether in Chorley or Bristol West, would much prefer to pay a round tax rate of zero on their low earnings than 10%, which appears to be—although we are not sure—what the Labour party is proposing.
I will therefore not be supporting new clause 5 in the Division Lobby and I would invite all my Liberal Democrat colleagues not to support it either. We are completely clear as a party. We support the introduction of a mansion tax. We are clear about how it should be contrived, on whom it should be levied and how the proceeds from it should be spent. We do not need anybody else to do a study for us—whether the Labour party or the Treasury—to tell us how it might work. It is a great shame that after three years in opposition, at the first opportunity that Labour has taken to say, just tentatively, what it is in favour of—rather than talking about the long list of things that this Government have done that it is against—and just a few weeks after converting to a mansion tax, the Opposition need somebody else to tell them how it will work.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
That was an interesting half hour. It has changed entirely what I had planned to say, such is the power of the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams), although I suspect not necessarily in a way he would like.
A review of the workings of the support given to the housing market, which new clause 1 would provide, is necessary to ensure that there are no abuses, but perhaps also to make it clear to all sides that the support being provided is not necessarily for affordable homes, but for the building sector—although it would be better if it were primarily for affordable homes. I think it would be quite useful to have a report on that.
On new clause 5, I was initially intending to ask the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) to provide a little more detail, in the way that the hon. Member for Bristol West did. There are a number of reasons for that, but mainly it is because it might direct the Treasury towards where it might want to look. If, for example, the mansion tax were to be based on council tax banding, then, as we saw in Cardiff where a re-banding took place, it was not necessarily the wealthiest who ended up paying more; 64% of households ended up paying more, which was not a very good outcome. Secondly, if it is paid on the basis of stamp duty land tax, as currently configured, the Exchequer yield would be received only on the sale of the property. Quite clearly, it would not capture all the excess wealth from every property valued at over £2 million. If the mansion tax is to be a new tax, duty or levy, it would have been useful to have it explained.
There may well be a perfectly sensible case to make for a mansion tax, and I thought that that was what the hon. Member for Bristol West was trying to do at the beginning of his speech. As he went on, however, things became rather more confused. I paraphrase, but I think quite accurately, that the hon. Gentleman said that the mansion tax would apply only to a mansion or big house where a person or people lived. If this mansion or big house has one or two rooms that are put out to let, but perhaps not advertised particularly well, it could become a bed and breakfast or a hotel—no longer necessarily remaining a residential property where a person lives.
A number of interventions and discussions took place about farm houses or estates that might breach the threshold. Again, a house where people lived seemed to be the criterion, but one could easily imagine an associated outbuilding converted to house a few chickens, which could change the building from being a residential property. It was interesting to hear that. The hon. Member for Bristol West also referred to the building being the key, even within the curtilage of land on which crops were grown. If an ornamental garden with fruit trees that could be harvested lies inside the curtilage of land but the property is worth £3 million or £4 million, it could, according to the hon. Gentleman, be exempt.
Stewart Hosie
Before I go on, I will happily take the hon. Gentleman’s intervention.
Stephen Williams
I am glad that the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) is phrasing his questions in this way, but I suggest that he direct them to Labour Front Benchers, as it is, after all, their new clause and they have failed to provide the detail. I provided more detail in my speech in order to be helpful. I can answer all the hon. Gentleman’s questions, but I think he should wait for my pamphlet, which I can assure him will knock on the head all those anti-avoidance issues that he raises.
Stewart Hosie
I am almost at a loss for words at the suggestion that anyone could imagine that the world will hold its breath waiting on a Liberal Democrat pamphlet! [Interruption.] I do not want to digress, Mr Hoyle, but that is a mind-boggling proposition.
The confusion in the hon. Gentleman’s contribution was far from saying that new clause 5 does not make sense; rather, it confirmed why the new clause was necessary. There are so many flaws, omissions and potential avoidance mechanisms in the Liberal Democrats’ proposals—and we had all assumed that they were worked up to some extent when they went into this miserable Government—that it makes perfect sense for the Treasury to investigate them with all their flaws to determine whether they, or another version of them, are even workable. If the hon. Member for Nottingham East chooses to press new clause 5 to a vote, we will be happy to support it.
Chris Leslie
Given the constrained time available under the Government’s programme motion and the need to move on to other issues, I do not wish to press new clause 1 to a vote, but it is important that we continue to press Ministers for some firmer answers on their Help to Buy scheme, which gives the impression of having been written on the back of an envelope without much thought and without looking in sufficient detail at some of the questions that have arisen in the course of the last few hours, whether with regard to devolved Administrations or second home purchases. Therefore, it is necessary to consider this further during the Bill’s passage.
However, it is important to test the view of the House on new clause 5, particularly given the speech of the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams), who, in an acrobatic display of contortions that tests even the most adept of Liberal Democrats, managed to find a way to oppose a policy that he has supposedly advocated for a long time. Even when we agreed that the policy was the same, raising £2 billion on mansions worth over £2 million and using that money for a tax cut for low and middle-income households, he could not bring himself to abstain on the issue but will vote against the new clause. Therefore, we must test the view of the Committee.
Stephen Williams
New clause 5 calls for a study to be done by the Treasury; it is not about the principle of the policy. The Labour party gets £13 million of public money, Short money, to spend on policy development. Why does it not use some of that money to do its own studies?
Chris Leslie
When the Liberal Democrats are in a hole they really should stop digging. Is the reason for the hon. Gentleman voting against his own policy that he does not want us to look into the very details that he could not answer when challenged on his policy? Of course, if we are to implement a mansion tax we want to make sure that we get it right. We do not want the unthought-through approach taken by the Treasury. We want to make sure that we have taxes that are fair and will be sustainable for the population as a whole. Therefore, it is important that we test the principle of a mansion tax. Lower and middle-income households need that extra help and it is important that we put this question to the test. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 5
Mansion tax
‘The Chancellor shall review the possibility of bringing forward a mansion tax on properties worth over £2 million and publish a report, within six months of the passing of this Act, on how the revenue could be used to fund a tax cut for millions of people on middle and low incomes as part of a fair tax system.’.—(Chris Leslie.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.