National Insurance Contributions Bill

My point was that no one adviser does the whole lot. The process is so dispersed that the whole amount is not avoided; there are different schemes at different times. I rest my case not on the artificial and contrived schemes that we tend to talk about but on the retrospection aspect—more on the fact that views can change. I raised the issue of small companies, regarding which views have changed in the Treasury about what is a tax incentive and what is a tax abuse. The same can happen for almost anything—not just a scheme, because an employer paying contributions into a pension scheme on behalf of an employee is not a scheme. I would not rule out a change of heart in the Treasury; for example, any area which has an effect regarding national insurance today may not be viewed as having a benign effect in future. This legislation allows the Treasury, provided that there is a parliamentary majority in the House of Commons, to put through that House the equivalent income tax provision using the wholly unsatisfactory affirmative procedure, unless it was so out of line that it created a revolt. I predict that this House would never generate that rallying call to rise up against an affirmative resolution order relating to tax or national insurance law. That is the nature or our fears for this form of legislation, because it is not moderated in any real sense by the Bill. I heard what the Minister said, but we remain unconvinced of the case for this extraordinary degree of retrospection.