Clause 11. — (Exemption from Excise Duty of Vehicles Modified for Invalids.)

Part of Orders of the Day — Finance Bill – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 2 June 1964.

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Photo of Mr Laurie Pavitt Mr Laurie Pavitt , Willesden West 12:00, 2 June 1964

I support the Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King), and I also commend the Amendment of the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock). Both Amendments seek precisely the same objective. I am sure that the Treasury has a considerable amount of sympathy for this objective and that it is not far divorced from the case that is being made. I do not want to repeat all the arguments that have been put forward, because every possible point was covered in the speech of my hon. Friend.

I wish to add just two points. The first refers to the anomaly which arises when two disabled men, equally qualified, have two different vehicles. One has a car in which the controls have been altered and the other a car where the controls have not been altered. This means that one man would be exempt and the other would not. I should like to quote the case of a Mr. Adrian Weitzman who, because of polio, has a leg disability. He had a Ministry vehicle for a number of years. About four years ago he was able to change it and received a grant from the Ministry in order to acquire an ordinary Vauxhall car in which the controls were adapted to suit his disability.

Such is the speed of invention in the car industry that Mr. Weitzman now finds that he can drive a modern Morris car with automatic gears without the necessity for any adaptation. If this Clause remains as it is drafted, does it mean that Mr. Weitzman can get some slight adjustment made at the Minister's expense to meet the technical point behind the wording of the original Clause, which would cause the Ministry to pay for some alteration to the vehicle and thus enable him to qualify for exemption? Or, alternatively, is he to leave his car as it is and pay the tax?

If the Clause is left unamended, it will be a direct incentive to disabled men to seek to get their vehicles adapted at the expense of the Ministry rather than pay tax and so obtain a grant under the provisions in the Clause. In view of all the arguments which have been put more forcibly by my hon. Friends than I can put them, I hope that the Economic Secretary will not resist the Amendment or that the Government, if they cannot accept the wording of the Amendment, will Rive an undertaking to incorporate the principle behind it into the Bill. In the event of the Government being unable to do so, I hope that my hon. Friends will press this Amendment, because it involves an important point of principle affecting a large number of our constituents.