Clause 34 - Powers in relation to documents
Tax Credits Bill
3:45 pm
Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere, Conservative)
I am surprised by the strength of the Paymaster General's response when we were trying to help her. A few moments ago she criticised us for not doing enough, but when we try to help her she takes a trenchant line. Perhaps she has strong views on the subject.
I shall give the Paymaster General an example of where her attitude will create difficulties in practice. She says that in the case of suspected tax fraud it is sufficient for the Revenue to have the power to require documents to be produced. That is all well and good, but requiring documents to be produced relies on the honesty of the person concerned to produce them. If they do not produce all the documents, there will be little that the Inland Revenue can do about it. Of course, it is the honesty of the person concerned that is in question in the first place. In order to prosecute
these cases it is important to have the documents to consider as evidence.
The Paymaster General speaks as though the power to enter premises and search for documents is out of the ordinary, and she takes a strong view on it. I shall go away from the debate and study provisions that are made elsewhere in criminal law to generate powers for authorities to enter premises and search for documents because I suspect that those powers are more widely available than she seems to believe. I shall be concerned if I find as a result of my investigations that the Government are placing those who investigate tax credit fraud under a handicap that people such as the police, who investigate other types of fraud or offences in the private sector, are not.
We do not want unnecessarily to handicap the authorities in the investigation of tax credit fraud, and we do not want to draw a distinction between tax credit fraud and other types of fraud. I shall examine this carefully and reflect on it, and I may return to it. On that basis, and the need to make progress with the Bill in the relatively modest amount of time that is available given the many important issues that we need to discuss, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 34 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 35 ordered to stand part of the Bill.