Serious Crime Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 120: 120: Schedule 11, page 98, line 40, at end insert— ““In section 5 (interception with a warrant) aftersubsection (3) insert— ““(3A) Paragraphs (a) and (c) of subsection (3) shall not apply to an application for a warrant made by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.”””” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 121. In Committee I moved several amendments concerning the new powers that the Bill gives Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. I was grateful for the fullness of the Minister’s answer then and the comprehensive letter that I received late last week, following up the points that she made. The noble Baroness will see that I have retabled amendments on only one of the topics that I raised in Committee, in a form that I hope addresses some of the technical points that she made. The amendments concern the powers in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 to allow HMRC to obtain an intercept warrant, under Section 5, and to carry out intrusive surveillance, under Section 32. The powers are available to use for preventing or detecting serious crime as defined by that Act. Amendments Nos. 120 and 121 do not disturb the effect ofSchedule 11 to the Bill, which is to extend the use of those powers to all HMRC activities. My amendment would confine the use of the powers to the prevention and detection of serious crime, hence removing the possibility that HMRC might use them in other circumstances by relying on one of the other purposes for which they may be used under the Act. The two other purposes are the interests of national security and safeguarding the economic well-being of the United Kingdom. In Committee, the Minister said that HMRC, which can currently use the powers for just its former Customs and Excise functions, only ever applied for the use of the powers to prevent or detect serious crime. She said: ““HMRC does not apply to use the powers for national security purposes or to protect the economic well-being of the United Kingdom as HMRC’s functions do not include those purposes and an application would be inappropriate and no doubt unsuccessful””.—[Official Report, 27/3/07; col. 1615.] The functions of HMRC are somewhat illusive. The Commissioners for Revenue and CustomsAct 2005 basically says that the functions are to collect and manage taxes and that HMRC has all the functions that the former Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise had. We never managed to get a full list of those functions when we debated that Bill in 2005. HMRC’s website does not take one much further. It summarises what HMRC does by saying: "““We are here to ensure that the correct tax is paid at the right time””." In Committee, I sought to argue that since the collection of taxes is a crucial part of the economics of government it was not difficult to see an argument that pursuing tax assessment and collection could be to protect our economic well-being. When pursuing taxes which are being evaded through serious crime, no issue arises. But I pose the question of the pursuit of tax avoidance—a wholly legal activity which involves no crime whatever. However, tax avoidance reduces the tax take, sometimes very significantly, and has the potential to harm the economic well-being of our country. The Minister’s argument was that safeguarding the economic well-being of the UK relates to activity that is similar to the security of the state and was, hence, not available to HMRC. The Minister said that the powers could not therefore be used for tax avoidance. I put it to the Minister that the Act does not place this restriction on the use of the economic well-being powers. I fully accept that the Minister does not believe that HMRC should use the powers other than in the context of serious crime and should not use them for tax avoidance. But I hope she will see that there is some ambiguity in the statute and that it would be better to remove that ambiguity in order to protect future generations. In her letter to me of 25 April, the Minister pointed to the provisions of the interception of communications code of practice which makes an explicit link between economic well-being and state security, but that is only a code of practice and not the law. In addition, the code of practice for covert surveillance does not make the same link for Section 32 powers. The Minister will know that my amendments would in no way affect the RIPA powers for any of the other agencies who might need to use them: we have no desire to do that. My amendments are modest, relate only to HMRC and would simply ensure that what the Government think should happen will in fact do so. I beg to move.