§ Mr. P. SNOWDENI beg to move, in page 8, line 21, to leave out the second word "on," and to insert instead thereof the word "of."
This is one of the Amendments which the learned Attorney-General in the Committee stage said he would look into to see whether the wording could be made a little more clear, and this is the result.
§ Captain BOURNEThe Chancellor of the Exchequer has said, in effect, that this Amendment is purely a drafting Amendment. I have looked at the Amendment very carefully, and I find it very difficult to see how it goes into the Clause. If hon. Members will trouble to look at the Blue Paper of yesterday, they will find that this Amendment was put down to line 32, in which the word "on" does not occur, The Amendment is now put down to line 21, and the special paragraph would read, if the Amendment were made:
in the case of an over-deduction which is made good under paragraph (b) of this subsection, enure to the benefit of the person entitled to the payment on the occasion of which the over-deduction is made good;I am doubtful whether the Amendment is really necessary. I would not have raised the point at the moment except that this being a Finance Bill it is extraordinarily difficult to amend it in another place. We ought to take every 1617 care in this House to see that an Amendment inserted with the object of improving the Bill does not make nonsense, and so place the House in a difficulty in correcting the error in another place. I should be grateful if the learned Attorney-General would explain whether the substitution of the word "of" for the word "on" does, in fact, improve this particular Clause?
§ Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCEI confess that on first reading this Amendment it seemed a very peculiar one, but that is because we are still obsessed with the wording in the Clause. I hope that hon. Members will be able to make it read if they put a comma after the word "over-deduction." Perhaps the Committee will understand it better if I read the paragraph as amended:
any amount made good under the said Section two shall—(i) in the case of an over-deduction, which is made good under paragraph (b) of this sub-section, enure to the benefit of the person entitled to the payment on the occasion of which the over-deduction is made good;
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCEI beg to move, in page 8, line 27, to leave out from the beginning to the word "entitled," in line 28, and to insert instead thereof the words:
irrespective, in either case, of whether or not he is the person who was.I think the meaning of the Clause has been clear from the beginning, namely, that the repayment would be to the person then holding the share and receiving the dividend, and not to the person who had had it in the first case. As it appeared in the original drafting, the point was raised in Committee that even if the same person held the share all the time, it was stated in one place that he would get it and in another place that he was not to get it. There was confusion. This Amendment has been put on the Order Paper in order to make it perfectly clear that where the same person holds the share the whole time he is to be the one person who gets the benefit.
§ Amendment agreed to.