Crispin Blunt (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Reigate, Conservative)

I have a question about clause 33, although I was so overwhelmed by the Minister’s ability to turn these matters into English that I nearly missed the opportunity to ask it.

Subsection (2) states:

“An order under this section may amend or repeal section 32”.

It looks as though the Government intend to move to the scheme set out in clause 33, rather than that in clause 32, which looks to be a temporary arrangement. Will the Minister enlighten the Committee on whether that is the Government’s intention and give a sense of the time scale in which it might be achieved?

Phil Woolas (Minister of State (the North West), Home Office; Oldham East & Saddleworth, Labour)

The short answer is to do with the all-powerful Treasury. The power to require payment into the Consolidated Fund set out in clause 33 provides the flexibility needed to meet any future changes in the revenue accounting arrangements set out in clause 32, which provides for revenue collected by the UK Border Agency to be paid to HMRC. In that sense, there is no timetable.

Should circumstances change, clause 33 will enable the Treasury to require the Secretary of State and the director of border revenue to pay the revenue they collect into the Consolidated Fund. That might be necessary if there is a change in the accounting arrangements by HMRC and/or the UK Border Agency, or if there is a significant improvement in the amount of revenue we collect. We are currently responsible for 5 per cent. of Treasury take through tax and duty. That will change significantly, for example when the Government’s successful economic policy increases trade with the rest of the world. It would also change if, God forbid, with the advent of a Conservative Government, our manufacturing suffered such a collapse that we had to import everything, because duties would then go up.

I will now stop trying to buy time with hypothetical circumstances and read this note. This clause allows flexibility should the amount of revenue change. It mirrors the arrangements in the Revenue and Customs laws; there is nothing new about it. It is there just in case, rather than just in time.

Damian Green (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Ashford, Conservative)

May I clear up a procedural point? The Minister is one of the Treasury’s representatives on Earth—I understand that he is a Treasury Minister as well as a Home Office Minister. He says that this is to do with the all-powerful Treasury. Presuming the Bill becomes law, does that mean that one Home Office Minister must necessarily also be a Treasury Minister? Is that a permanent feature of the arrangements that link HMRC and ukba?

Phil Woolas (Minister of State (the North West), Home Office; Oldham East & Saddleworth, Labour)

That is not something of which I remind the Home Secretary often, but it is helpful. The answer is yes, because the director of border revenue, who is the chief executive of ukba, is equivalent to a commissioner for Revenue and Customs in being the accounting officer who is responsible for revenue. The Minister with responsibility for Customs will shadow and oversee the director, just as a Treasury Minister shadows and oversees commissioners. That will be the case for as long as the Customs function remains within the Home Office. In practice, for the enlightenment of the Committee, I am told that I have a private secretary in an office in the Treasury, but I have yet to get across there to find it—[Interruption.] No, not two salaries. On a serious note, this means that the arrangements for and the relationship between duty levels—and VAT levels, in some respects, given the importance of customs to the Revenue—is set out in consultation with the Treasury and as part of Budget preparations. I hope that that explains the situation.