Finance Bill

Debate between Stewart Hosie and Christopher Pincher

Wednesday 2nd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

I welcome the chance to make a brief contribution to the debate on this group of amendments. It was a pleasure to serve on the Public Bill Committee with the Exchequer Secretary; it was certainly an educational experience for me. It was also a pleasure to serve with the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), although her professed determination to scrutinise the legislation line by line did at times make it feel as though she was scrutinising it word by word.

I should like to speak briefly to Government amendments 1 and 2, which affect clause 207, encompassing clauses 192 to 212. As the Minister and the shadow Minister have said, those provisions deal with follower notices and the accelerated payments regime. I was heartened to hear that the Minister is spelling out the ground rules for appeal in respect of follower notices, but he will know that there remains some residual concern, to say the least, about the retrospective nature of accelerated payment notices.

A number of people and their advisers have made what they believe to be a proper disclosure, particularly after the increase in the fine for non-disclosure from £5,000 to £1 million, erring on the side of caution and over-disclosing. They are concerned that they will now be caught up by that disclosure and will find themselves with retrospective tax liabilities, perhaps dating back to 2004. The Minister was good in Committee in making it clear that he would continue to consult the industry and taxpayers, because the original consultation was brief. I hope that he will do that, and will continue the dialogue with the industry and with taxpayers to ensure that nobody is caught up unfairly, having tried to do the right thing, by these proposals. I look forward to hearing him make the position clear in his remarks .

[Stewart Hosie]

I rise to speak against new clause 1 and the introduction of the bareboat chartering regime. I heard the Minister’s comment that this is about trying to get a fair tax return from this small but important sector. It tells us that at the moment it is paying about £200 million a year in tax and national insurance. At a yield of about £100 million, the tax return from this small sector will be increased by about 50%—that seems a substantial increase in a short period.

I would like to say that this bareboat chartering regime was a one-off stand-alone bad measure, but it does not stand in isolation. It is part of a pattern of ill-judged, disjointed and sclerotic decisions that this Government have taken, and it typifies their attitude to the North sea. Some years ago, we had the massive hike in North sea corporation tax supplementary charge, which absolutely stifled investment and brought it to a grinding halt. That led the Government, in panic, to make some kind of correction through the introduction of a large series of complicated new and enhanced field allowances.