National Insurance Contributions Bill

In respect of the date of retrospection, it is not that 2 December 2004 is a particularly offensive date. It may well have been a lovely day; I do not know, because I was not fortunate enough to be a Member of this House at the time. It might well be reasonable to backdate to that date national insurance contributions that have been avoided by means of ““dishonest schemes””—to use the Paymaster General’s words—although we continue to disagree on that point. The implication of the Bill is that we shall set a dangerous new precedent for the way in which the House conducts its business. Would it become a requirement that all financial services professionals should, instead of reading the Financial Times over their cornflakes, thumb through a copy of Hansard, looking for ministerial statements that might affect them two years down the road? Should they believe that whenever the Government express an intention to legislate, they will follow it through? We have had broken promises from this Government before. Should tax advisers warn their clients of the potentially earth-shattering—or at least profit-affecting—implications of the Paymaster General’s words every time she addresses us with her customary eloquence? No, that would be absurd. We have endured the loss of clarity in our tax system. We must not endure a further erosion of certainty, otherwise we will become prohibitively uncompetitive as a nation. Legislation should be proportionate. It is said that this legislation will affect only the dishonest. It will not. It will have a knock-on effect throughout the financial services industry. Will the Minister at least exclude one knock-on effect by confirming that the use of ministerial statements to signal retrospective taxation will not proliferate into a general principle?