Contribution
You would not believe, Madam Deputy Speaker, how far beyond delighted I was when I discovered that I would be stepping in for a colleague on the Finance Bill. I am sure that the House is similarly ecstatic to hear me speak on the Bill. I did a significant number of Finance Bills in my first few years in this place, and I have missed it. I have also missed the former Member for Amber Valley, Nigel Mills, who used to make a speech from the Government Back Benches about something that nobody else had even considered or knew existed. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) is very kindly stepping into his shoes and raising issues relating to gambling tax, which, to be fair, are important. He is asking very important questions, as Nigel Mills used to, about a fairly niche subject. In the light of the hon. Member’s comments about gambling taxation and the black market, it would be great if the Treasury provided updates on how the tax has worked.
In fact, I think the Treasury should generally provide more updates on every tax measure that it implements. If the Treasury says that a tax measure will raise £30 million, it would be helpful for the MPs who sat on the Finance Bill to know whether it did in fact raise £30 million, or if it raised £50 million or £10 million. Then, we could make better decisions about future tax changes, because we would have a better idea of whether they would achieve the Government’s aims. Successive Governments have been particularly bad at undertaking post-implementation reviews, particularly of tax measures. It would be really handy to see that information more regularly, so that we can make better-informed decisions.
Let me touch on the transparency issues that have been mentioned. Earlier, I raised my concerns about the fact that additional Ways and Means motions were added at this point. I also raised the fact that we do not have oral evidence sessions during the passage of the Finance Bill. I continue to make the case that that could be done after Committee of the whole House. Usually the more technical aspects of Finance Bills are considered in a Public Bill Committee in a Committee Room, rather than in a Committee of the whole House in the Chamber.
The Minister said that some Government amendments had been tabled following stakeholder feedback—particularly through written evidence—to clarify the intention of the legislation. The Government had intended to do something, and stakeholders said, “We don’t really understand this; it’s not clear enough. Could you clarify it?”. If the Government had held oral evidence sessions, they may have been able to make those changes in Committee, rather than on Report. I urge them, and any future Government, to consider holding oral evidence sessions. Anyone who has been on a Bill Committee in which there are oral evidence sessions will understand their great value, and we refer back to them so many times throughout the course of a Committee. There is nothing quite like being able to ask an expert questions, rather than just looking at the written evidence, which is helpful, but it is not the same. We do not remember written evidence in the same way, and we do not have the same ability to probe it.
I want to touch on the four amendments that may be put to a vote. The SNP and I are happy to support new clause 4, tabled by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy). I was thinking about the history of some “get rich quick” schemes. We had Ponzi schemes and pyramid schemes. The new thing—the Ponzi scheme of the day—is the scheme that says, “This is foolproof. This is failsafe. You are going to make loads of money doing this,” but it is actually unregulated. The new clause would be incredibly helpful. I would have preferred the new clause to say “user-to-user services” instead of “social media”, so that it would cover all the stuff in the Online Safety Act 2023. That covers things that we may not classically define as social media. For example, if somebody gave really terrible tax advice on a money-saving expert forum, would that be included in the definition of social media? Social media is not 100% defined, which is why I would have preferred a different term. However, the new clause is sufficient to cover the majority of people.