Mr Ian Stewart: Government Amendment No. 158 appears to deal with the same basic point as we raised. I invite the Minister to confirm that.
Mr Ian Stewart: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Mr Ian Stewart: I beg to move Amendment No. 173, in page 136, line 29, after 'transfer' insert: 'or account would have been so taken if paragraph 18(3)(b) were satisfied'.
Mr Ian Stewart: I suspect that Government Amendment No. 174 is the draftsman's expression of the intention in Amendment No. 173. Can the Minister confirm that?
Mr Ian Stewart: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Mr Ian Stewart: I welcome the group of amendments which has just been passed because it is the result of a number of defects in the Bill. We argued our points successfully in Committee and I thank the Minister for giving careful attention to them. Since this might be my last intervention on the Report stage of the Bill, I should like to congratulate the Minister on the way in which he conducted the Bill...
Mr Ian Stewart: My right hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) has made a major contribution to this legislation, as the Minister of State recognised, and I want to add my own words of thanks to him. As a novice, it has been a pleasure and an education to me to work with someone so experienced and so wise. As my right hon. Friend pointed out, there are a number of serious shortcomings in the Bill,...
Mr Ian Stewart: My right hon. Friend points out to me that he meant to say both. That is our commitment. The other point which has been raised is about the position of the exempt bodies—the local authorities—which are permitted to acquire property and land net of tax under these arrangements. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Fylde (Mr. Clegg) reminded us, this will encourage local authorities to...
Mr Ian Stewart: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. The purpose of the clause is to resolve one of the loose ends from our discussion of the Development Land Tax Bill. We have run this race before, although over a different course, and I shall not repeat the arguments in detail. Section 488 of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1970 is an anti-avoidance measure designed to catch what...
Mr Ian Stewart: I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation. I omitted to refer to his letter, not through lack of courtesy but because it did not seem to say anything different from what he had already intimated to me. I welcome the Minister's categoric statement that in his view and that of the Inland Revenue an offset will be available for any development land tax paid on a direct charge which...
Mr Ian Stewart: My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral (Mr. Hunt) and the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars) may well be baffled by the Government's reasons for introducing a tax of this kind. Although the Financial Secretary listed four rather specious reasons why it was a good thing to impose such a tax, does anybody believe any of those reasons? Those who are puzzled about the present situation...
Mr Ian Stewart: Is it not totally out of proportion for it to be necessary for the Archbishop of Canterbury to make representations to the Prime Minister about adjustments to a tax Bill which should be dealt with in the normal way by adequate time being available for the tabling of amendments to it?
Mr Ian Stewart: I appreciate the intricate analysis of the implications of the Bill of the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Watkinson). He spoke a good deal of sense about some aspects of money supply and the borrowing requirement, about which there is probably not much difference among hon. Members. I wish to return to the question of the consequences of the announcement of 22nd July. The first...
Mr Ian Stewart: As the surcharge will not be paid until April next year and the passage of the Bill can, apparently, be compressed in a week, would it not have been better to wait until the representations had been considered and then introduced a Bill which took them into account?
Mr Ian Stewart: Mr. Deputy Speaker, when you consider the most important point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) and his comments about the way in which consideration of the Bill has been telescoped, I hope that you will take into account and the House will remember the reason which has been given from the Treasury Bench for the necessity for a timetable in this way. The reason was...
Mr Ian Stewart: It may therefore be all the more important for the House to realise the specious, or at least the trivial, reason which has been given for the telescoping of the various stages of the Bill. Is it that the Japanese pocket calculators in the Treasury are not capable of doing the necessary arithmetic quickly enough? Is it that the printing presses available to the Government are so inert that...
Mr Ian Stewart: My hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. MacGregor) moved the amendment with his usual skill, and I hope that the occupants of the Treasury Bench will take careful note of what he said. It is wrong that only in this way should the House be able to consider the impact of the proposed surcharge on any of the categories to which it will apply in terms of the rate at which it is to be...
Mr Ian Stewart: I accept everything that the hon. Gentleman said. I thought that was what I said myself. I said that there was a change not only in this country but also overseas. To that extent, much of it was outside the Government's control. I readily admit that. I was also trying to make the point that there were certain events within the Government's control. To that extent it was a matter for them to...
Mr Ian Stewart: I do not want to throw this back at the Minister, but does that mean that his statement as reported at column 33 of Hansard for 6th December—that the surcharge would be on the same basis as national insurance was being paid; that is to say, earnings under £95 a week—taken in conjunction with the figures that he quoted on Monday for the practical reasons that he was not able to reveal the...
Mr Ian Stewart: I beg to move, That this House urges the Government to alleviate the growing burdens imposed on businesses by official regulations and requirements. After that introduction by Mr. Speaker I hardly know what to say. It was by happy chance that my motion was drawn today to be debated after that concerning the memorial to Earl Attlee, because the first after-dinner speech I ever made was to...
