Investigatory Powers

Part of Clause 48 – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 17 May 1976.

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Photo of Sir John Cope Sir John Cope , Gloucestershire South 12:00, 17 May 1976

I wish to make clear my repugnance for the clause. That phrase is not mine but the Chancellor of the Exchequer's. He used it in opposing, in the debate on the 1972 Finance Bill, the clause bringing in the VAT provisions. He persuaded the present Chief Secretary and the present Financial Secretary to vote against the clause. Today those Ministers are trying to extend the provisions to many more people. We must be absolutely clear how far the powers go. They go much further than the Chief Secretary sometimes implies.

An inspector will have power to break unto any premises, by night or day, regardless of whether they are occupied, to search premises and to remove any document he wishes from those premises. "Premises" includes any place of business or home, and the offices of a lawyer or accountant.

There is no point in writing professional privilege into the Bill by Section 20A in Schedule 6 if that provision is immediately annulled by Section 20B. If a barrister or solicitor refuses to produce a piece of paper under the professional privilege rules and the Inland Revenue still wants it, it will only have to wait until he goes home to break into his premises and take it away. Other offices, however loosely connected to the taxpayer, or even unconnected, are included. The person whose office or home it is may not be the person who is thought to have committed the tax fraud. Even if he is. power is given to break into psychiatrists' offices, for example. As we have seen in America, that can lead to considerable trouble for political parties and their leaders.

We have not been told why these powers are required. A Back Bencher claimed on Thursday last at Question Time—and the Treasury Bench agreed—that there was massive evasion of the tax laws the extent of which could not be evaluated. We have been given no evidence to support that allegation and we have not been told why the clause and the provisions in Schedule 6 will help the Inland Revenue.

They will not help the Inland Revenue when dealing with ordinary taxpayers because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Mitchell) said, if the Inland Revenue suspects fraud or the withholding of information, it issues an enormous assessment and makes the taxpayer justify his figure. The provisions will not be of much help to the Inland Revenue in dealing with major frauds because they come within the province of the police who already have rights of entry, with safeguards. The Chief Secretary has a duty to tell us why he is not satisfied with the existing powers of entry possessed by the police. The conclusion I draw is that the powers will be used only for small suspected frauds in which the police are not involved.

Several improvements and safeguards are suggested in amendments both in Committee of the whole House and Upstairs. I favour the idea floated in the Economist, which is supported in an amendment, that if these powers are to be taken by the Government, the personal signature of a Minister should be required by the information of the court. The Government have not yet justified the principle which lies behind these provisions.

There are also several other lesser points with which I hope the Chief Secretary will deal. One point concerns damage and the duty of care that any citizen owes to other citizens. What happens, for example, if the Revenue officer after ransacking somebody's bedroom slips on the carpet, falls downstairs and hurts himself? Who is responsible for paying damages in that case? It was surprising to me to discover not long ago that the householder, owner or occupier of premises has a duty of care towards trespassers if he has been careless in allowing them to trespass. Does he have a similar duty of care to the house-breaker who turns out to be a licensed Revenue official?

What will happen if the official leaves his jemmy on the landing and the householder falls down the stairs? In that case does the Revenue have to pay damages to the householder? What happens if after the Revenue man has broken down the door and taken whatever he requires and gone away, a burglar then appears on the scene and takes advantage of the state of the premises to carry out the burglary himself? Who pays for the damage caused?

Supposing also that the taxpayer is present when the Inland Revenue official enters the premises and takes it on himself to hold on to a file or papers, and says to the tax inspector" You may search the premises, but you will not have this file. "Is the Revenue official then allowed to use reasonable force, any force, or no force at all, to get the file, if that is what he then wants?

What form of identity card or documents is it proposed that the Revenue official should carry in the course of going about this part of his work? We all know that other powers exist in respect of gas meter readers and similar workers. We also know that many householders have admitted what they thought to be a gas meter reader or other genuine official only to discover that he is a burglar who has then proceeded to steal. Obviously anybody may use the disguise of a Revenue official unless it is made clear to the public by some form of identity that he has come to carry out a search.

It seems to me that these are not mere details but are important aspects of a provision on which the House needs to be reassured. The most important part of this discussion is that the Chief Secretary must justify, if he can, the need for these provisions at all.