Childcare Payments Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 9:45 am on 28 October 2014.
Priti Patel
The Exchequer Secretary
Clauses 42 to 47 contain the remaining penalty provisions for the new scheme. This is a good opportunity to describe them in greater detail. For the time being, I would like to say that it is essential, as we have discussed, to have a robust regime of sanctions and penalties to deter those who attempt to abuse the scheme. Government amendments 21 and 22 will make minor technical changes to clauses 42 and 44. I emphasise again that we anticipate that the vast Majority of parents will not be affected by the clauses, as there is no reason to suppose that they will do anything to warrant HMRC taking action against them.
Clause 42 allows HMRC to charge a penalty of up to £300 where someone fails to provide information or documents. Clause 43 allows HMRC to charge a greater penalty of up to £3,000 where someone provides information or documents that are inaccurate, whether they do that deliberately or are going out of their way to misinform HMRC.
Clause 44 enables HMRC to impose a penalty on someone who repeatedly uses the funds in their child care account for any purpose other than qualifying child care. As the Committee will recall, that is referred to in the Bill as a prohibited payment and the value of that penalty is 25% of the total value of the prohibited payments that have been made. Clause 45 sets out the penalties applying when someone obtains a top-up payment dishonestly. It allows HMRC to impose a civil penalty in cases where it does not pursue a criminal prosecution.
Clause 46 sets out how HMRC may assess and notify any penalty to which a person becomes liable under the scheme, and those penalties must be paid. Clause 47 simply ensures that a person will not be liable to any sanction or penalty in relation to the scheme where they have already been convicted of a criminal offence for the same conduct.
I have touched on Government amendments 21 and 22, which make minor changes respectively to clauses 42 and 44. They ensure that all the clauses work properly in all cases where parents make late appeals.
A parliamentary bill is divided into sections called clauses.
Printed in the margin next to each clause is a brief explanatory `side-note' giving details of what the effect of the clause will be.
During the committee stage of a bill, MPs examine these clauses in detail and may introduce new clauses of their own or table amendments to the existing clauses.
When a bill becomes an Act of Parliament, clauses become known as sections.
As a bill passes through Parliament, MPs and peers may suggest amendments - or changes - which they believe will improve the quality of the legislation.
Many hundreds of amendments are proposed by members to major bills as they pass through committee stage, report stage and third reading in both Houses of Parliament.
In the end only a handful of amendments will be incorporated into any bill.
The Speaker - or the chairman in the case of standing committees - has the power to select which amendments should be debated.
A parliamentary bill is divided into sections called clauses.
Printed in the margin next to each clause is a brief explanatory `side-note' giving details of what the effect of the clause will be.
During the committee stage of a bill, MPs examine these clauses in detail and may introduce new clauses of their own or table amendments to the existing clauses.
When a bill becomes an Act of Parliament, clauses become known as sections.
The term "majority" is used in two ways in Parliament. Firstly a Government cannot operate effectively unless it can command a majority in the House of Commons - a majority means winning more than 50% of the votes in a division. Should a Government fail to hold the confidence of the House, it has to hold a General Election. Secondly the term can also be used in an election, where it refers to the margin which the candidate with the most votes has over the candidate coming second. To win a seat a candidate need only have a majority of 1.
As a bill passes through Parliament, MPs and peers may suggest amendments - or changes - which they believe will improve the quality of the legislation.
Many hundreds of amendments are proposed by members to major bills as they pass through committee stage, report stage and third reading in both Houses of Parliament.
In the end only a handful of amendments will be incorporated into any bill.
The Speaker - or the chairman in the case of standing committees - has the power to select which amendments should be debated.
Anne Main
Conservative, St Albans