Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 5:30 pm on 3 December 2001.

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Photo of Lord Pearson of Rannoch Lord Pearson of Rannoch Conservative 5:30, 3 December 2001

This is another very brief probing amendment. If we were to remove paragraph (a) from subsection (5), as the amendment suggests, it would appear to have the effect of allowing the imposition or increase of taxation under subsection (1) of Clause 110. I am sure that no Members of the Committee would want to pass tax powers to the European Union in that way. But my question to the Minister is: why is Clause 110(5)(a) on the face of the Bill at all, unless without it the power to tax might have been created by Clause 110?

I think it unlikely that we are dealing merely with some superfluous drafting inserted by the Treasury to irritate the Foreign Office, or vice versa. In speaking to the previous amendment I referred to the possible far-reaching effect of importing Article 24 of the TEU as amended at Nice into British law by regulation. I have no doubt that importing the rest of Title V, Title VI and the Schengen acquis into the Bill also have very far-reaching effects, but they are difficult to understand in the huge thicket of bureaucratic language and obfuscation with which we are always faced in these treaties.

My question to the Minister is simple. Will she explain clearly how the possibility arises that in the absence of Clause 110(5)(a) these tax powers might arise? Will she please take us through the thicket—if not now, perhaps in correspondence and before we come to the next stage of the Bill—through the intertwining clauses, of the treaty and explain to us how that might be? I beg to move.