Schedule 14 - Vans
Finance Bill
9:45 am
Mr Quentin Davies (Grantham and Stamford, Conservative)
The hon. Gentleman is 180° wrong. The Government have got it wrong because they seem to think that by drafting this extremely heavy schedule they can accurately define all possibilities and leave no room for doubt, but they have not succeeded in doing so. I shall propose a way in which that might be possible using a 10th or less of the words in the schedule to produce a fair system without those ambiguities. I refer the Committee to new subsection (5) which states:
''The commuter use requirement is satisfied at any time if— the terms on which the van is available to the employee at the time prohibit its private use otherwise than for the purposes of ordinary commuting or travel . . . neither the employee nor a member of the employee's family or household makes private use of the van at the time otherwise than for those purposes.''
Does ''at the time'' mean at the time when the commuter run or travel is being undertaken, or at any time when the van driver has the theoretical liability because he has use of the van? Great ambiguity is being introduced into the Bill. If it means the former, narrower definition, does that mean that someone cannot drop their child off at school on the way to work while claiming the commuter use? Perhaps the Government will explain what they have in mind, because it is unclear to me what ''at the time'' means. Perhaps it means just the relevant part of the year when the van is available.
Similarly, new subsection (7) states:
''The business travel requirement is satisfied at a time if the van is available to the employee at the time mainly for use for the purposes of the employee's business travel''.
''Mainly'' is identified in the Taxes Act 1988 as being more than 50 per cent. Are the courts expected to apply that definition in this case? Again, the provision is loosely drafted, despite the enormous effort that has gone into producing excessively long and convoluted legislation. It is not a good day's work by the Government.
I shall make three points in conclusion. First, the provision is unfair. It involves an enormous increase from £500 to £3,000, which is not at all reasonable.
More important, you might inadvertently—I use the word ''you'' in the sense of ''one''. I suppose that one is allowed to make use of the impersonal you.