Clause 11.—(RESIDENCE OF HOLDER OF OFFICE OR EMPLOYMENT PERFORMED ABROAD.) (Hansard, 10 July 1956)

§ Mr. H. Brooke

I beg to move, in page 10, line 5, to leave out from "person" to second "the" in line 7 and insert: works full-time in one or more of the following, that is to say, a trade, profession, vocation, office or employment and the condition mentioned in the next following subsection is satisfied". Perhaps it would be for the convenience of the Committee also to discuss the two subsequent Amendments to lines 8 and 10.

These three Amendments do two things. First, they bring within the scope of the Clause certain people who are engaged full time in a trade, profession or vocation, no part of which is carried on in the United Kingdom. If I remember rightly, this was a matter to which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens) drew attention when we were discussing this Clause earlier, and an under- 240 taking was given that we would look at it further.

Secondly, the Amendments provide for a slight relaxation of the requirement that the holders of offices and employment must carry out their duties wholly outside the United Kingdom as a condition of the application of the Clause. The Committee will recollect the debate which we had on the meaning of the word "wholly", in a similar context in what was then Clause 9 of the Bill, when an Amendment was moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black). I gave an undertaking that, while I could not accept his Amendment to substitute the word "mainly" for the word "wholly", because that would apply where 51 per cent. of the work was carried on abroad and 49 per cent. in this country, I would see if there was any form of words which would, as it were, so define the word "wholly" as to read "almost wholly". This is what we have sought to do here. I think that this will be in accordance with the wishes of the Committee as then expressed.

The first Amendment makes it clear that the trader or the professional man, whether working on his own account or in partnership, should be brought within the Clause if he is working full time in that trade, profession or vocation and if no part of it is carried on in the United Kingdom. The provision that the work should be done full time is designed to exclude those among the traders and professional men who are comparable with employees who have duties partly here and partly overseas. What we are seeking to do is to get a comparable test for the traders and the professional men. The tests for employees are that the employment must be full time and the duties must be performed wholly outside the United Kingdom. We are proposing similar tests for the traders and professional men, though after consideration we are willing to respond to the suggestion made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member Kensington, South that they should be brought within the scope of this Clause.

I hope that as regards the difficult word "wholly" the new language suggested in the last of the three Amendments will commend itself to the Committee. We were all agreed at an earlier stage that it would be wrong to make this Clause inoperative because of the performance 241 in the United Kingdom of trifling duties which were merely incidental to the performance of the main duties aboard. We have sought—and I hope that we have been successful—to find a form of words, in the latter part of the third Amendment, which will define that situation satisfactorily and meet what were at the time the unanimous wishes of the Committee.

§ Mr. John Peyton (Yeovil)

It is only with very great reluctance that I intervene, thereby prolonging the proceedings on the Bill. It is also with great reluctance that I enter the wood of Income Tax law; to me it is a quite intolerable forest, which only too often is beyond human comprehension. We must hope that at some time the tax law will be reduced to a form which can be understood.

I am disappointed that my right hon. Friend has been unable to go rather further in these Amendments. I take it that the Clause as a whole is intended as a concession, but in fact there are certain classes of people—they may not be many—who, by losing their residence status, have lost a considerable benefit. I have never been satisfied that in recent years we have treated our colonial servants with anything approaching the measure of generosity which they might expect. I have referred to my right hon. Friend the instance of a constituent who is a colonial servant and who will be adversely affected to the extent of £200 a year.

All I am suggesting to my right hon. Friend—and I put the suggestion to the Committee now—is that it is right and proper that colonial civil servants serving abroad, particularly when they are coming towards the end of their service, should be placed in a position in which they can provide fully for their retirement at home.

This, I am aware, raises a general point which I feel has never been properly appreciated by the Treasury—namely, the wholly different nature of the problem of retirement for those serving in the Colonies overseas. It is not a problem which affects any civil servant in this country.

I have made as strong a representation to my right hon. Friend as I could. Although it may be too late this year to 242 take action, I very much hope that my right hon. Friend and the Treasury will go into the matter and not say merely that it would be inconvenient and would make the arrangement untidy by creating an exception but will admit that the demand of justice is very clear here, that a colonial civil servant, in particular, should in no way be penalised and that the benefit which he previously and very properly enjoyed should not now be taken from him.