Clause 19 - Disclosure of VAT avoidance schemes
Finance Bill
4:30 pm
Mr John Healey (Economic Secretary, HM Treasury; Wentworth, Labour)
I am grateful for that guidance, Sir John. I am making my remarks now on clause 19, as it is the principle item, although the schedule of course contains many specific measures.
The right hon. Gentleman will know from experience—not just from serving in Committee on Finance Bills, but from his time as a Treasury Minister—that there is an almost constant process of altering legislation when its abuse through systematic avoidance has been identified. That is change of a different nature from the clause. The clause is not about the specific avoidance schemes to which the sort of legislation that he referred to might be appropriate. It is essentially meant to give Customs and Excise more
information, more quickly, about the nature of activities that may be an abuse, or may be systematic VAT avoidance, and may, therefore, create a need for the sort of legislative change that he describes.