Orders of the Day — Finance Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 10 July 1959.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Gilbert Mitchison Mr Gilbert Mitchison , Kettering 12:00, 10 July 1959

I am sure that my right hon. and hon. Friends and I are most grateful to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the kind words he has said about us. I reciprocate by saying that we have never had a more plausible and attractive Treasury Bench. For instance, I should like to congratulate the Economic Secretary on his graceful and eupeptic imposition of the intolerable, the Financial Secretary on his charming and convincing defence of the indefensible, and, in his absence, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor-General on his convincing explanations, particularly after midnight, of the inexplicable. That is quite something.

Turning to the Third Reading of the Finance Bill, I begin by picking up one small waif of a Clause, Clause 30. It has slipped through unmentioned and unnoticed. I have noticed that whenever any member of the Government has gone anywhere near Clause 30, he has given a hop, skip and a jump and passed to the next Clause. It is a very odd Clause. It looks all right. What it says is that there is now to be a new form of stamping policies of marine insurance. They are to be charged 6d. each.

But the Clause conceals a certain remissness of the Treasury under many Governments, and the occasion ought not to be allowed to pass unnoticed. It is now thirty years since, in a case in the House of Lords, Lord Atkins, in a case which will not be new to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Financial Secretary—this is the English Insurance Company versus National Benefit—said: .. re-insurance of marine risks is a perfectly legitimate business, and the result, as appears from the discussion before your Lordships, is that it is impossible to conduct this form of business, by which a company that engages in marine insurance tries to secure in advance that its risks shall be fairly distributed by re-insurance policies, by any contract which can be enforced in courts of law. As I say, I think that is a matter which might reasonably be considered. If it is the deliberate policy of the Exchequer that such business as this should go untaxed, then it seems to me that it would be right that the fiscal legislation should make that clear, so that parties might embark on business of this kind. On the other hand, if it is desirable, as it well may be desirable, that the Exchequer should take its share by taxing this business "— provision should be made for taxing it. He described the carrying on of this very extensive business as: …outlaws moving outside the pale, and it is difficult to see why that should be the position. That was thirty years ago and the Treasury has never done anything about it from that day to this.

The marine reinsurance business, which, after all, is a rather important part of the insurance business in the City of London, has been conducted illegally from that day to this by treaties of reinsurance which cannot be stamped because they do not mention and cannot mention the total amount of the insurance. It has been put off until now, but no arrears are being planned and people in this business are to get away with a sixpenny tax.

I want now to turn from that to an entirely different matter. We all welcome the relief which has been given in postwar credits, but the Treasury does not take quite the attitude I have mentioned towards post-war credits. I have had cases, as have other hon. Members, where the Board of Inland Revenue, no doubt following the letter of the law, has set against post-war credits arrears going back to the 1941–44 period.