CLAUSE 54.—(Relaxation of rules as to use of postwar refunds of excess profits tax in case of nationalised undertakings, etc.) (Hansard, 11 June 1947)

§ Mr. Glenvil Hall

I beg to move, in page 52, line 33, to leave out "subsections (2) and (3)," and to insert "subsection (2)."

This Clause, as the Committee will have noticed, make provision for relaxing the rules as to the use of postwar refunds of Excess Profits Tax where industries have been nationalised, and it fulfils a promise given by my right hon. Friend earlier this year in reply to a Question, when he indicated that, where it was not possible, owing to an industry's being nationalised, for the excess profits refund to be ploughed back into a business, they should be distributed to the people entitled to them. This is actually a drafting Amendment, because Subsection (2) deals with the case where compulsory acquisition takes place before the refund has been made, and Subsection (3) deals with the opposite case where compulsory acquisition takes place after the refund has been made. Therefore it is quite wrong to lump these' two opposites together in Subsection (5).