Serious Crime Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 122: 122: Clause 75, page 42, line 4, leave out ““regulation of”” The noble Baroness said: The amendment would delete ““regulation of”” from the first line of Clause 75. Clause 75 merely introduces Schedule 11 and explains in parenthesis that it, "““makes provision about the regulation of investigatory powers of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs””." Schedule 11 contains 31 paragraphs. Four of them amend the Police Act 1997; 25 paragraphs amend the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000; and two amend the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005. Not a single paragraph refers to the regulation of investigatory powers, notwithstanding the title of the 2000 Act which I have just mentioned. Each and every one of them grants additional powers to HMRC. I come from the call-a-spade-a-spade school of legislative drafting, and I hope that the Government will welcome my amendment because it would make plain what they intend with their Schedule 11. Schedule 11 is one part of a much broader initiative to increase the powers of HM Revenue and Customs. When HMRC was created out of the merger of the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise last year, the existing scheme of powers was broadly maintained on the basis that there would be a review of them in due course. Before the merger, Customs and Excise had many more powers than the Inland Revenue. Many of us warned at that time that the review of powers would be an excuse for levelling them up, and we have been proved right. I shall come to some substantive points about increasing HMRC’s powers in my later amendments, but, for the present, I wish with Amendment No. 122 simply to ensure that the Bill is honest in stating that it is increasing HMRC’s powers and not regulating them. I beg to move.