National Insurance Contributions Bill

I thank the Minister for that reply. Of course in due course I shall withdraw the amendment, because that is the custom in Grand Committee; more’s the pity. I was pleased to hear the noble Lord say that the Treasury accepts that there is a difference between ““expedient”” and ““reasonable””, which the noble Lord, Lord Newby, could not see. He said that it would make it more difficult to get regulations through under the sections that are affected by the amendments. That is the heart of the problem. If it makes it easy to make unreasonable amendments, we genuinely have something of a problem with that. Reasonableness is a concept that should be at the heart of our tax legislation. I accept some of the points made by the Minister that the order-making power is restricted to cases where there has been an equivalent income tax provision and therefore a parliamentary process has been gone through. I am not sure that it necessarily follows that it is always reasonable—although I have accepted it in relation to all the schemes that have come through to date—but prospectively it would be reasonable for an equivalent amount to pass through in relation to national insurance. That is as far as we can take it today. What the noble Lord said did not give me concern, but it is clear that the Treasury has a desire to put unreasonable elements through under this clause. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendment No. 2 not moved.]