Mr Ian Stewart: My hon. Friend raises a very important topic. Picking up a point which I have made already and which did not seem to attract any horrified response from Government supporters when I made it the first time, frankly, we do not know the financial situation of the country even now, let alone what it is likely to be in three, six or nine months. As I said before, I was hoping to hear from the...
Mr Ian Stewart: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. Last year in the Committee stage on the Finance Bill the Opposition introduced a new clause which led to a major alteration in the arrangements for development land tax, in that case relating to the taxation of pre-let developments. This year in Committee I moved new clause no. 15, as it then was, which has led to a further important...
Mr Ian Stewart: I do not want to repeat the points that have been made already, but we should be aware of the nature of this problem. It is true that in the debates upstairs in Committee one of the points that the Government made for not accepting our new clause was that only one case—that of OCL—had come to the notice of the Inland Revenue. I am advised that OCL is only one example of the need for a...
Mr Ian Stewart: I beg to move amendment no. 112, in page 8, line 31, after 'and', insert 'either'.
Mr Ian Stewart: Clause 10, to which this amendment and the other amendments in the group refer, provides relief for VAT on bad debts, but in a rather limited way. It is limited to cases of formal insolvency. This has raised the possibility that there may be some very unfortunate side effects because of the incentive to creditors to put companies into liquidation. The purpose of the six amendments, nos....
Mr Ian Stewart: I cannot resist an invitation put in such terms and, in order to make way for my right hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page), I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Mr Ian Stewart: I should like to say a few words about early-day motion no. 502, which is in my name and which now has substantially more than 300 signatures of right hon. and hon. Members. The Minister alluded to this in his opening remarks. Before I do so, I think that I should make my own position clear. I am a full-time Member of this House with a part-time job outside. I suspect that that is true of...
Mr Ian Stewart: I said more than 310. Of course, all members of the Government, the Shadow Cabinet, Parliamentary Private Secretaries to persons in positions of responsibility, Mr. Speaker and the Deputy Speakers, are all affected. There are also the senior officers of the 1922 Committee and the Parliamentary Labour Party, who have felt that since they were involved in direct negotiations with the Lord...
Mr Ian Stewart: I prefer not to answer that question for the obvious reason, which the Minister will know, that there are many opinions about this. My point is that the present level clearly is below a realistic threshold for a considerable number of our colleagues. I have avoided touching on absolute levels partly because other hon. Members have dealt with the question and partly because Boyle has been...
Mr Ian Stewart: I did not mean this to be self-congratulation. If what I said sounded like that, I apologise to the hon. Member and to the House. I felt that it was necessary to describe how the motion came about. I did not mean it in any way as a personal reflection on myself.
Mr Ian Stewart: Is it contemplated that it might be possible to give a renewal of a transitional licence?
Mr Ian Stewart: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. MacGregor), I begin by declaring an interest. I am a director of Brown, Shipley & Company Limited and a member of the Accepting Houses Committee, which I joined in 1960. This has been a short but useful debate and I should like to make a few comments on some of the points which have been made. I think it will be apparent to anyone who...
Mr Ian Stewart: The Minister has made an important comment. He said that if the bank was carrying out all these functions and was of high reputation and standing, it would be a recognised bank in the terms of the Bill. I am anxious about the fact that there are a number of companies—I shall not, for obvious reasons, name names tonight—which are greatly concerned that they have been advised informally...
Mr Ian Stewart: Again the Minister is answering in theory, but in practice there are a number of cases in which the smaller bank, because it has not satisfied the Bank of England that it qualifies as a recognised bank, would be prevented by law from accurately describing its business. I do not believe that the Government can alter the established meaning of a common word by Act of Parliament, much less make...
Mr Ian Stewart: The discretion of the Bank of England is very reliable, but under this legislation it will be necessary for the Bank to give almost statutory meaning to words such as "reputation" and "standing". For the purpose of making any licensed deposit-taker into a recognised bank, it will have to think carefully about the standards in a technical sense that it operates. I believe that there are some...
Mr Ian Stewart: I am happy to follow the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire) and other right hon. and hon. Members in welcoming the Bill. The hon. Member for Ince was right in saying that a certain obscurity surrounds credit unions in this country. I have learnt much about them in the past few weeks since this Bill appeared on the horizon. I have learnt more today listening to some of the instructive speeches...
Mr Ian Stewart: I agree that the guarantee fund idea and the arrangements under it providing for lump sums in such circumstances are a benefit of the system and could be one of the factors which enable the movement to develop. The hon. Member for West Bromwich, West (Miss Boothroyd) emphasised, rightly, the value of the common bond and the personal knowledge between members of a credit union and potential...
Mr Ian Stewart: You have possibly put your finger on one of the complications of credit unions that I was too tactful to mention, Mr. Deputy Speaker. But, avoiding the domestic aspect, from the constituency point of view, if there are not credit unions in Hitchin now, I hope that there will be in future. I shall have no hesitation in encouraging them. Subject to some of the anomalies which have been...
Mr Ian Stewart: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I feel that at this stage in our proceedings I ought to place on record the fact that, in my view, the House has been placed in an embarrassing position by having to deal with the Report stage of this complicated Bill without having had sufficient time to consider the amendments and proposals that are to be suggested on Report. It is obviously too...
Mr Ian Stewart: Before I turn to the subject matter of this interesting debate about the status of Giro, I wish to make a declaration and a reference outside the debate. First, I declare an interest. I remind the House, as I said on Second Reading and in Committee, that I am a director of Brown Shipley and Co. Ltd., a merchant bank and a member of the Accepting Houses Committee. Secondly—my reference may...
