Clause 16
Finance (No. 2) Bill
9:30 am
Mark Francois (Shadow Minister, Treasury; Rayleigh, Conservative)
May I also welcome you to the Chair, Mr. O’Hara? I look forward to serving under your beneficent guidance and that of your fellow Chairmen as we plough our way through the Bill over the next few weeks.
I also take this opportunity to welcome the Economic Secretary to our proceedings, and to congratulate him on his early promotion to the Government Front Bench. Someone has clearly smiled upon him and I think we all know who it was.
We have moved on to part 2 of the Bill, which deals with the VAT regime. When VAT was introduced in the United Kingdom back in 1973 it was apparently billed as a simple tax that would be easy to understand and to administer. In the next few hours, I suspect that the Committee might disagree with that original assertion.
The clause deals with VAT and gaming machines. It represents a relatively gentle introduction to this part of the Bill and is relatively non-controversial. The Financial Secretary helpfully wrote to members of the Committee on 8 May, outlining the Government’s rationale behind the clause, which seeks, in essence, to update the definition of gaming machines for VAT purposes and the related definition of a “game of chance”. Anyone embarking on a political career might have their own definition of that.
I have one question to put to the Minister at this juncture. The final full paragraph of the Financial Secretary’s letter mentions that the updated definition of a “game of chance” is intended to comply with the definition in the Gambling Act. In itself, that seems to be a sensible provision. However, the letter also refers to a nuance concerning the fact that the Gambling Act does not apply in Northern Ireland. As the Financial Secretary said, confirmation is awaited that this will not cause any problems in using the definition in tax law. Before we allow the clause to stand part of the Bill, will the Minister expand a little on that point? Will he explain, at least roughly, when the Government expect that work to be complete? When do they expect that confirmation to be forthcoming so that the order can be issued.