Clause 26. — (Miscellaneous Exemptions for Certain Kinds of Property.)

Part of Orders of the Day — FINANCE (No. 2) BILL – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 27 May 1965.

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Photo of Mr Robin Maxwell-Hyslop Mr Robin Maxwell-Hyslop , Tiverton 12:00, 27 May 1965

The Financial Secretary has shown that he becomes angry when anyone argues a point of principle on an Amendment, but points of principle ought to be argued and he ought to be composed enough to listen with interest to what is said.

The Bill as drafted looks after lawyers. Clause 26(6) makes certain that no Capital Gains Tax is levied on a lawyer who is injured and who receives compensation for his injury. No one says to the Financial Secretary that, because his practice and standing and the amount of money he can get for going into court to represent people have grown over the last 10 years, Capital Gains Tax must be imposed upon any damages he receives if he is unable to follow his profession because someone has injured him. It would be said, rightly, that that was an involuntary tragedy which had overtaken the hon. and learned Gentleman—or some other lawyer, and it ought not to be taxed. But the farmer who does not ask someone to drive a road through his land, who does not ask someone to deprive him of his means of livelihood, but who is forced to sell nevertheless is called upon to meet this tax. In many cases, of course, a man will have to move.

The Financial Secretary has put the whole Committee in a very difficult position by pleading Clause 31 in defence of his rejection of Amendment No. 265. We have not reached Clause 31, so we cannot consider whether this Amendment should not be taken, because the hon. and learned Gentleman claims that Clause 31 makes it unnecessary. Yet he does not want the points of principle to be argued and gets angry about it. Angry he will have to be. He has put the Committee in an intolerable position.

This is an essential pair of Amendments. It is not good enough to suggest that the whole of the rest of the country is composed of professional men and that, so long as no professional men suffer in damages, everything is all right. All we are asking for is elementary justice for people whose livelihood depends on their land. If the Financial Secretary will do the same for them as he is doing for lawyers, for his own breed, we shall be happy on this side of the Committee.