Clause 7.—(POWER OF BOARD TO RECOVER EXPENDITURE TN CERTAIN CASES.) (Hansard, 4 July 1957)

§ Mr. Maudling
I beg to move, in page 11, line 7, to leave out "of this Act in respect" and to insert: or section (Payments in respect of death or disablement in certain cases) of this Act as a result". This Amendment is made necessary by the acceptance by the House of the new Clause providing for payments in respect of death or disablement. Clause 7 (1) as it stands provides that where the Board has to pay out money because of subsidence damage caused by a small licensed mine, it should be able to recover from the operator of the mine the money it had paid out. That is the principle applied by the Bill as it stands to payments made in compensation for physical damage, and all that the Amendment does is to extend the same principle to any payments made in respect of personal damage.

§ Mr. Maudling
I beg to move, in line 7, to leave out "as the result of" and to insert "in connection with".
The effect of this Amendment is the same as that of an Amendment made at an earlier stage, and it is intended, as the House will be aware, to deal with the problem of the dewatering of seams.

§ Mr. Maudling
I beg to move, in page 11, line 13, after "under," to insert: subsections (2) to (5) of". This is a purely consequential Amendment to the acceptance by the House of the Amendment in page 4, line 20

§ Mr. Maudling
I beg to move, in page 11, line 17, to leave out "commencement" and to insert "passing."
This, again, is a consequential Amendment. Like a similar Amendment made to subsection (1) of Clause 1, it is made necessary by the introduction into the Bill of the new Clause setting up retrospective effects in certain limited circumstances.

§ Mr. Maudling
I beg to move, in page 11, line 30, at the end to insert: and where the person to whom the Board have made any payment under the agreement has paid over the whole or part of that payment to any other person by virtue of that other person's being entitled to the beneficial interest therein, any reference in this or the next following subsection to the recipient of payments under the agreement shall be construed in relation to that payment or that part thereof as including a reference to that other person". This is a small Amendment, but it is more than consequential. Clause 7 (2) enables the Board to recover money in certain circumstances, that is, if it has paid someone for the right to cause subsidence damage, and also becomes liable to pay compensation for that person. Obviously, that is quite unfair, and Clause 7 (2) therefore in these circumstances enables it to reclaim from that person the amount it has paid out.
It has been observed subsequently that in certain circumstances it might be impossible to reclaim the money if it has, for example, been paid to a trustee who has passed it on to a beneficiary. The purpose of this small Amendment is to ensure that in those circumstances the Board shall be able to recoup itself from 1427 the beneficiary, who is the only person in a position to pay the Board.

§ Mr. Maudling
I beg to move, 12, lines 3, at the end to insert: and (iii) any amounts shown by that person to have been borne by him by way of tax which he would not have borne but for periodical payments made by the Board under the agreement. This Amendment raises another small but important point. Where the Board has to pay people money in advance in order to exempt itself from the payment of compensation for damage—as I was explaining earlier the Clause provides that it shall be able to recoup these payments if it has to pay compensation—the payments are sometimes annual payments. It has been pointed out to us that the payments suffer tax, and if the Board were able to recoup the total sum, the person concerned might have to pay more than he had received. The Amendment provides that the payment is to be no more than the amount received, which we think is fair.

§ Mr. Robens
Will the Inland Revenue repay the tax that has been paid, after the National Coal Board has been reimbursed?

§ Mr. Maudling
It is not in the nature of the Board of Inland Revenue to make repayment if it can possibly help it. If the income were properly liable to tax, I doubt whether anything could be extracted from the Inland Revenue without the machinery of a Finance Bill.