Moved by
That the Bill do now pass.
(Con)
My Lords, in moving the Motion that this Bill do now pass, I take
the opportunity to thank noble Lords from all sides of the House
for their interest and contributions to the progress of the Bill.
In particular, my thanks go to the noble Lord, , and the noble Baroness, Lady
Kramer, for their constructive engagement, thoughtful
contributions and thorough consideration of this piece of
legislation.
As ever, I am grateful to the House authorities and parliamentary
staff for their hard work behind the scenes. I acknowledge the
work of the officials who have worked so hard on the Bill for
many months: the Bill team; the policy teams at HMRC and Her
Majesty’s Treasury; the lawyers in both departments; the Office
of the Parliamentary Counsel; the clerks in this place; and,
finally, my noble friend Lady Scott.
I take this opportunity very briefly to recap the importance of
this Bill. It introduces new measures to unleash the potential of
our ports and regenerate left-behind communities by encouraging
businesses from around the world to invest in our regions,
spreading jobs and investment opportunities across the country.
Specifically, it introduces two employer national insurance
reliefs for workers in free ports and organisations that recruit
Armed Forces veterans. In doing so, it supports the delivery of
the Government’s free ports programme and boosts regional growth
and the employment prospects of our extraordinary veterans. The
Bill also provides an exemption from self-employed NICs for test
and trace support payments, which will apply retrospectively from
the 2020-21 tax year. Finally, the Bill introduces changes to the
disclosure of tax avoidance schemes regime. I beg to move.
(Lab)
My Lords, I join the Minister in his thanks, particularly to the
Minister himself and his team. I commend their availability to
interested parties and the many interesting Zoom meetings we have
had. I also thank all Members who were involved in this Bill,
particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer. Between us, I think
we produced an excellent speed-through and we have done the Bill
a total service. Finally on the thanks side, I thank my team,
which is one half of Dan Stevens, without whom I could not have
carried this burden.
On the substance of the Bill, I note what the Minister has said.
I hope that he shows equal enthusiasm for the two rather gentler
amendments that we are sending to the Commons, and I hope that we
see this Bill no more.
5.45pm
(Lab)
My Lords, I have participated in the progress of this Bill and I
have always appreciated the stated objectives. I know that I have
disappointed the Minister with my pessimism about its likely
effects, but I thank him for his unfailing courtesy during the
Bill’s progress.
(LD)
My Lords, it is very nice to have an opportunity to say thank
you, and I really want to say thank you to the Minister and his
office. Not only were his staff always courteous, but their
willingness to meet us, to answer questions and provide a great
deal of detail, was very helpful—certainly for me, but also for
anyone not sitting on the Government Benches. We really
appreciated that flow of information.
For my part I thank Sarah Pughe and Katherine Ginty, who gave me
a great deal of support—and were sitting alone on my Benches for
most of this Bill. It is always excellent, too, to work with the
noble Lord, . We found a good way, I think,
to pursue the primary interest of the Official Opposition while
also giving space to the views coming from these Benches, and
often to find common ground.
I particularly appreciated the amendments that the Minister
brought forward which reflected the concerns of the Delegated
Powers Committee. From a constitutional perspective, it is
important that he took those on board and made change that is
exceedingly sensible and constructive. I thank him very much for
that.
The two gentle amendments—as the noble Lord, , described them—are actually
rather important. One was on veterans. I hope that it will be
well received when it heads back to the Commons. Our amendment,
on a public—rather than non-public—register of beneficial
ownership of businesses in the free ports, could hardly be more
pertinent today, as we look to bring in economic sanctions
against henchmen of Putin. Once again, the Prime Minister has
talked very publicly about the importance of the public nature of
registers, so it would have been sad not to ensure that this
register started life in that way. So I hope that that amendment,
too, will be very warmly received by the Commons.
It often feels as if there is an inner circle of three from
across our three Benches on some of the less dramatic finance and
economy-related Bills, and it has been very good to work with
everyone again. I thank also the staff of the House, who are
always so supportive.
(Con)
I just want to thank the three noble Lords for their comments.
With that, I shall go quickly to moving this Motion.
Bill passed and returned to the Commons with amendments.
