HC Deb 21 June 1966 vol 730 cc471-2
Mr. MacDermot

I beg to move Amendment No. 244, in page 91, line 18, to leave out from "references" to the end of line 19 and to insert: to a part of the reduction which bears to the whole the same proportion as the amount of that other member's dividends at paragraph (a) of the said section 85(6) paid to the company bears to all those dividends except for any paid to persons who are not members of the group of companies. This Amendment corrects an error in one of the fractional calculations in Schedule 6, concerned with the three-year surplus relief. Paragraph 1 of the Schedule reduces a subsidiary company's three-year surplus relief on the amount of dividends which it passes to other companies in the group. Paragraph 2 is designed to make available to the parent or other group company its appropriate share of the amount of the reduction suffered by the subsidiary.

However, as sub-paragraph (2) is worded, it fails to produce this result if there are minority shareholders outside the group. All that is required is a form of words excluding dividends to subsidiaries on this point and this is what the Amendment provides.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin

I would say to my hon. Friends the Members for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) and Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) that the reason I acceded to the suggestion of the Chief Secretary on the question of the three-year surplus was that I should otherwise have had to try to understand paragraph 2 of the Sixth Schedule. I suggest that anyone who succeeded in understanding that paragraph would deserve to be promoted Senior Wrangler, as it is even more unintelligible than many of the paragraphs in the earlier Act. I take the point that it seems to be appropriate and we are happy to accept it.

Mr. Peyton

The mere fact that a Clause or Schedule is an unpalatable mess is no reason why the Government should be relieved of the tedious and tiresome business of explaining it. Indeed, the nastier the Schedule the more ought the Government to explain it. The duty is on them. The more they are obliged to go through these measures, the more I hope that their successors will be warned by the ghastly experiences they have gone through in exposing What they have done to the public gaze, standing there and going into detail as to what they mean.

I do not see that there is any accompanying obligation on the entire Committee to follow them through every detail of that tedious process, but, nevertheless, I believe that Governments are under such an obligation and, although I accept that it was my hon. Friend's modesty that led him to accept the suggestion which the Chief Secretary advanced, I emphasise that when Governments put forward these intolerable monsters they should go through the process of explaining what they mean.

Amendment agreed to.

Schedule, as amended, agreed to.