“(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must review the viability of equalising any relevant interest rate charged by virtue of the specified provisions for the specified purposes and lay a report of that review before the House of Commons within six months of the passing of this Act.

(2) In this section—

“the specified provisions” means section 101 of FA 2009,

“the specified purposes” means the charging of interest for—

(a) late payment, and

(b) repayment.”.—(Peter Dowd.)

This new Clause would require the Chancellor of the Exchequer to review the viability of equalising HMRC’s late payment interest rate and the repayment interest rate.

Brought up, and read the First time.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

The Committee divided:

Ayes 9, Noes 10.

Question negatived.

Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill, as amended, to the House.

On a point of order, Ms Dorries. I will be very quick; we are now due in another place for yet another round of Treasury stuff. I thank you and your co-Chair, Hansard, the Doorkeepers, our Whips, our Parliamentary Private Secretaries, my hon. Friend the Member for Poole, our officials—particularly Liam Mulroy and Calum Boyd in my office—and our Bill team at the Treasury. I also thank everybody on the Committee for having made this such a smooth and productive session.

Further to that point of order, Ms Dorries. I thank you and the House staff—the Committee Clerks, the Doorkeepers and Hansard—as well as everybody involved in consideration of the Bill, including my colleagues.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill, as amended, accordingly to be reported.

Committee rose.

FB05 Six Wealden constituents - Mike, Trevor, Anna, Al, Sonia and Stephen.