MISCELLANEOUS AMENDMENTS (Hansard, 17 July 1980)

§ Mr. Lawson
I beg to move amendment No. 139, in page 87, line 16, leave out '(b)'.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments:
Government amendment No. 140.
Amendment No. 100, in page 87, line 20, at end insert 'but this amendment shall not apply to a transaction which this Board is satisfied is not made with the primary intention of tax avoidance and is one in which all parties to it are companies within the same group'. Government amendment No. 141.

§ Mr. Lawson
These amendments fulfil an undertaking that I gave in Committee, and I hope they will commend themselves to the House.

§ Sir Graham Page
The purpose of amendment No. 100 was to endeavour to ensure that the clause did not catch perfectly innocent and genuine transactions. I was hoping that my hon. Friend might have said whether my amendments 1841 were in any way included in the Government amendments and whether my points had been met. I cannot recognise in the Government amendments any evidence that the point has been met, but I may not have read them sufficiently carefully.

§ Mr. Lawson
My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. The Government amendments are an attempt in a different way—and a way that I feel is more appropriate—to meet the point that he very rightly made.
My right hon. Friend's amendment is very similar to amendment No. 334, which was tabled in Committee by my hon. Friend for Renfrewshire, East (Mr. Stewart). In replying to the debate on the whole subject—which is basically how to prevent avoidance without capturing bona fide transactions in this limited but important area—I said that I would see whether the provision in subsection (2), as it then was, could be refined so as to let out at least some bona fide transactions. I made the point then that it would be most unlikely, if not impossible that we could catch the avoidance transactions without at the same time catching some bona fide transactions. I hoped that we could keep those to a minimum.
The amendments to clause 113(2), as it now is, are the result of the undertaking that I gave. They do not—as my right hon. Friend's amendment would—import a motive test. Instead, they would allow the exempt slice to be given where the transactions between connected persons before disposal outside did not involve the fragmentation of an interest in land.
I hope that my right hon. Friend will agree that the purpose behind his amendment has been met, even though it has been met in a different way from the way that he proposed.