If you want to know whether UK politicians hold parliament in contempt or not then the evidence from today is pretty compelling.
The Finance Bill 2015 was published this morning. With notes there is 267 pages of it. And it will be law by Wednesday night. One day is being allocated to debate on it. And that includes all the scrutiny the new, and badly drafted, Diverted Profits Tax will get.
Of course you can say some of this was published in draft in December. But parliament did not discuss it then. So the tax profession has had much more time to comment than MPs have.
Maybe that's what the Treasury thinks appropriate. I do n0t. This is contempt of parliament. I wish the opposition said so loud and clear and refused to cooperate, as it could.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Hear, hear! Richard Murphy for Chancellor!!
I think that will never happen
“Opposition” you say? No, doesn’t ring any bells… honestly, people are talking with concern about the possibility of there being some ‘grand coalition’ after the election between the Tories and Labour – what do people think we have now? If there were such a coalition, what would happen that isn’t happening now?
The tax profession will have commented and to be honest most of the time I don’t think their comments are listened to any more than your own, but everybody can agree that there is never any proper parliamentary scrutiny of tax legislation.
Poorly drafted tax legislation is the norm. It will take years for tax barristers to understand a few small but significant parts of the Finance Bill and the courts will be left to wade through mountains of ambiguity to confirm those views. After a decade people will know what those sections mean and at that point the legislation will probably change anyway.
Contrast this to Parliament which will vote it through in a day on the basis of a brief overview that has been prepared by a civil servant. Most of the MPs won’t even attend the debate or read the overview, which in most cases is just a paraphrasing of the legislation. Votes will be cast along party lines, which makes the whole debate pointless.
” If there were such a coalition, what would happen that isn’t happening now”
Simple.
Instead of Nick Clegg kissing David Camerons backside, either David Cameron would be kissing Ed Milibands backside, or Ed Miliband would be kissing David Camerons backside.
That, in a simplified form, would be the difference. The only difference. A government of national disunity.
The unions would dump labour immediately, most labour MPs’ would be appalled.
The conservatives….well, who knows what they would do?
Nearly 350 pages of Finance Bill cannot be given adequate Parliamentary scrutiny in a matter of hours. As Heather Self has been quoted as saying, this is “an abrogation of the parliamentary process”. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/931875ea-d23b-11e4-ae91-00144feab7de.html
Not to mention that many of the measures come into effect at the beginning of April, but some of which have been substantially amended since they were published in draft in December. If putting clauses out for consultation means there is no need for Parliamentary debate, why bother with the charade of Second and Third Reading, and Finance Bill Committee meetings at all?
We agree
And I do with Heather on this one
Is this just end of term panic or is it certain people just getting ready to feather their own nests – AGAIN?
What sort of country allows the debasement of its democracy in this fashion?
The answer is, a country that now idolises money and nothing else. I wouldn’t mind half as much if I did not expect to be dragged down with them.