My Lords, the amendments in this group add the relevant provisions of the Oil Taxation Act 1975 and the Corporation Tax Act 2010 to the legislation listed at Clause 2(6), which contains the Secretary of State’s relevant oil and gas functions. This ensures that the functions provided for by these Acts fall within the definition of “relevant functions”
and can be transferred from the Secretary of State to the Oil and Gas Authority by regulations made under Clause 2(2).
Schedule 1 to the Oil Taxation Act 1975 and Part 8 of the Corporation Tax Act 2010 contain the important oil and gas functions of determining oil fields, cluster areas and whether an oil field project is materially complete. These functions form the basis of oil taxation and are currently undertaken by the Oil and Gas Authority in its capacity as an executive agency. Amendment 2A to Commons Amendment 2 simply seeks to ensure that the function of determining whether an oil field project is materially complete is also transferable to the OGA.
These amendments are technical in nature and simply seek to put it beyond doubt that these key functions can be transferred to the OGA once it becomes a government company, as we have always intended. I beg to move.