Serious Crime Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 127: 127: Schedule 11, page 97, line 24, at end insert— ““The following amendments shall have effect only for the purpose of tackling serious crime and not for any other purpose notwithstanding any provision of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.”” The noble Baroness said: This is the last of my amendments, at least at this stage. The amendment concerns the additional powers in Schedule 11, which we have been discussing. When HMRC published its latest consultation document on its powers in January this year, it stated that it was the Government’s intention to extend various powers to former Inland Revenue activities now contained in Schedule 11. The document said: "““Ministers have decided to put the proposed extension before Parliament in the Serious Crime Bill. It remains the case that under the proposals these powers would not be available for use in any HMRC activity except criminal investigations into serious crime””." The noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, repeated that when she responded to Amendment No. 123. My amendment seeks to ensure that that clear and unequivocal statement is in the Bill because, as far as I can see, it contains no such restriction. The Minister will be aware that Sections 5 and 32 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act go beyond the prevention or detection of serious crime. Those sections concern intercept warrants and intrusive surveillance respectively. They are also available for use in the interests of national security and the safeguarding of the economic well-being of the UK. We are not clear that it is appropriate that those wider circumstances should be available to HMRC. It seems to us unrealistic to think that HMRC will be involved with matters of national security, but if any such issues arose, the proper course would be to involve the appropriate authorities which could themselves, if appropriate, seek to use the RIPA powers. Safeguarding the economic well-being of the UK is, at first sight, an interesting idea. But we believe that if HMRC needs extra powers, they should be available only if the tax issues concerned raise matters of fraud. If we take the example of missing trader intra-community fraud—better known as carousel fraud, to which the noble Baroness referred earlier—it is clear that the scale of that fraud is of national importance and potentially harmful to the economic well-being of our country. But it is fraud, none the less, and the rationale for using such powers by HMRC would be fraud-based and would need no other justification. The Minister will be aware that HMRC, with the encouragement of the Government, have been steadily blurring the distinction between tax avoidance, which is perfectly legal, and tax evasion, which is not. There is a concern that if HMRC were equipped with powers that went beyond criminal activity, it might start to interpret the economic well-being of the UK to encompass the use of tax avoidance techniques. Let me be clear that we do not carry a banner for tax avoidance. We do not encourage or condone it. But it is not illegal and should not be exposed to techniques such as surveillance. HMRC already takes extensive powers in tax legislation to deal with tax avoidance—that is why our tax code is so long and complex and now rivals India’s as the longest tax code. But if powers designed for serious crime or seditious activity were to be used for more routine tax administration, that would raise big issues of the nature of the state's revenue-raising arm and such issues should at least be considered by an independent commission, as I referred to when speaking to the Keith Committee report on an earlier amendment. I hope that the Minister will agree that these new powers for HMRC should be confined to issues of serious crime and that she will agree to my amendment. I beg to move.