Clause 9 - Compliance regime for statutory sick pay and statutory maternity pay: Great Britain
National Insurance Contributions and Statutory Payments Bill
2:45 pm
Ms Dawn Primarolo (Paymaster General, HM Treasury; Bristol South, Labour)
It is important to draw a distinction between failure to comply and wilful failure to comply, which can turn on small points, and fraud or evasion. We need to be able to respond. Given the breadth of the obligations on both the tax authorities and the taxpayer to which the tax authorities need to respond, it is important that, where we can, we have one set of rules and we pursue them. Sometimes, for there to be fairness, a response has to be proportionate, so there might be slight variations.
None the less, the hon. Member for North Norfolk makes a valid point. It is not for the Committee to discuss the national minimum wage, but there was, and still is, some resistance to those requirements. I cannot speculate as to whether new provisions go through phases, but I will say that the national minimum wage is a matter for the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. I am happy to write to all members of the Committee about the position regarding prosecutions and their success rate, although that will be published in the joint minimum wage reports of the Inland Revenue and the DTI. There will be no problem with that. I have covered all the questions and I am grateful to hon. Members for their patience.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.