Finance Bill
Debate between Tim Loughton and Bernard Jenkin(9 years ago)
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Mr Jenkin
That is absolutely correct. Having observed the history of 40 years of membership of the European Union, as it is now called, we know that it is not going to stay like this. The European Union will continue to develop. The trend of taking more taxation powers away from the member states, in the name of the single market, is enshrined in article 113, so it will continue to do so. Yes, we have a veto, but the European Court of Justice tends to accelerate the pace of tax harmonisation just when we do not expect it to do so. It is the ECJ that extended VAT to certain items and categories of goods when we did not expect it to do so.
The group of amendments also addresses the renewables obligation incentives and seeks to adjust the feed-in tariff regime. Why are we able to reduce taxation on renewable energy products to only 5%? It is because of the European Union. Why could the previous Labour Government not abolish VAT on fuel, which they said they wanted to do after it had been applied by the Major Administration? It is because of the European Union.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I agree with everything my hon. Friend is saying, although I am slightly alarmed by his statement that the shadow Cabinet is a semi-public meeting.
Surely the harmonisation of tax fails on two fronts. First, different countries treat these products at the higher rate, the lower rate or at no rate. Secondly, on equality of treatment, is my hon. Friend able to think of any other product that is taxed so discriminately that it affects only one half of the population of the European Union, who just happen to be women? Is that not the most discriminatory and iniquitous measure that the EU has come up with?
Mr Jenkin
My hon. Friend makes an interesting point and raises the spectre of a case to bring before the courts—perhaps even the European Court of Justice—on the basis of discrimination. Perhaps that would be one way of resolving this particular problem.
I am shamelessly using this example as an opportunity to make a far broader and more important constitutional point.
Public Administration Select Committee
Debate between Tim Loughton and Bernard Jenkin(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I, too, commend my hon. Friend and the PASC for this forthright and uncomfortable report. Is he aware that the figures are being distorted further by the police’s increasingly arbitrary use of police information notices? When an individual perceives that harassment has taken place, often devoid of a common-sense test of whether a complaint has substance or is vexatious, according to Sussex police, at least, there is no need for them to follow their own guidance as it is only guidance. Even more worryingly, complaints about comments made in this House by hon. Members can be registered as a hate incident by police despite our parliamentary privilege.
Mr Jenkin
It did not finish up in court—that was the point, wasn’t it? It was privileged. I thought the incident was bizarre and showed an extraordinary lack of understanding of where the police sit in the constitutional framework of this country. It seemed to me to lack common sense and I agree with my hon. Friend.
I should say for the record that Cleveland, Surrey and Lincolnshire had a far higher no-crime rate than the national average when it comes to reported rapes. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough should be asking his police why they record rape and then downgrade it so much more often than the vast majority of constabularies.