(Except clauses 1, 4, 5, 9, 14, 22, 42, 56, 57, 124, 130 to 135, 138, 139, 148 and 184 and schedules 5, 6, 19 and 25, and any new clauses and schedules tabled by Friday 9th May 2003 relating to excise duty on spirits or R&D tax credits for oil exploration.)
Finance Bill
8:55 am
Mr Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield, Conservative)
I welcome right hon. and hon. Members to the first sitting of the Finance Bill 2003. I am a tough Chairman and this will be an ordered, constructive and positive Committee. I hope that ways will be found to discuss all the important parts of the Bill, which is important not only to the House but to many people outside.
I want to make some domestic announcements. Copies of the money and Ways and Means resolutions are available in the Room and Members are encouraged to obtain copies and to study them.
There are some red boxes in the Room, perhaps in anticipation of those who aspire to high office. There is one for every Committee member, and no doubt they will wish to collect them in due course.
I want to say with every emphasis that I can muster that mobile telephones may be useful electronic devices, but I do not like their sound in this Standing Committee, so I hope that they will all be switched off.
I also want to announce, well in advance, a matter that is always stated by the Chairman—it is not my intention, or that of other Chairmen of this Committee, to call starred amendments.
I hope that I have made myself clear and that this will be a good Committee. We have a programme motion, whether we like it or not, and I hope that important matters can be debated properly in this Committee, despite those restrictions.