COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

HC Deb 25 January 2000 vol 343 cc159-70

'When the country of origin differs from the country of destination for a service or product contracted through the medium of an electronic communication, the vendor shall fully disclose prior to binding confirmation of such contract the liability of the purchaser of such service or product for any duties, taxes or other levies arising in the country of destination; and the purchaser shall otherwise be entitled under English law to retain or reclaim from the vendor or his United Kingdom agents the amount of any such duties, taxes or other levies lawfully demanded by the tax authorities in such country of destination.'.—[Mr. St. Aubyn.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. St. Aubyn

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

This important new clause would have the effect of ensuring that taxation across borders is properly addressed by the Bill. More and more people are buying products on the internet from other countries. Where the value of a purchase is above a small threshold of about 28 ecus or £18, duty falls to be paid on it. When people buy products on the internet from a vendor in another country, their liability for duty may be made clear in the small type on the web page. Their payment by credit card, without accounting for duty, is received in the country of origin of the goods, which are then shipped.

When the goods are delivered to the purchaser in this country, a claim is made by the person making the delivery or agents of the vendor to collect the duty. At that point, duty will have been paid by the importing agent of the company in the country of origin. There is no loss of revenue to the Exchequer but there is an immense problem for those making the delivery in collecting the money from the customer in the UK.

4.15 pm

The result, according to industry sources and recent reports in the industry's specialist press, is that millions of pounds of duty is not being collected by those acting on behalf of vendors overseas. Vendors' agents are having to bear that cost and are doing so in the hope that the matter can be properly resolved. The Government have been approached on that issue, I understand, and asked whether they would consider raising the threshold below which no duty is levied. There is—in my view quite rightly—resistance to raising the threshold of about £18 because a much bigger loophole could be created and a great deal of revenue and customs duty that should be collected might be forgone. The onus is therefore on them—if they will not raise the threshold and expect that money to be collected—to ensure that people who purchase goods in this country have a proper mechanism for raising and paying that money.

Dr. Stephen Ladyman (South Thanet)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. St. Aubyn

When I have explained the new clause fully. It says that a customer could not be made to pay duty unless he was made properly and clearly aware when purchasing the product that he may be liable to do so. Companies wishing to import goods to this country would find that no one would handle such an import unless he had a counter-indemnity from the supplier saying that he would recover the duty from that supplier. The onus to make it clear to customers in this country that they may be liable for duty would therefore be put back on the supplier. That seems to be the only practicable way by which the respective obligations of the supplier and the purchaser could be enforced through legislation in this country.

If the Minister has an alternative means of tackling the mischief, the House will be keen to hear it this afternoon. If she has no alternative, will she please acknowledge that there is a real problem here? If the growth of e-commerce from one country to another is predicated on the fact that purchasers do not realise that there is a hidden charge for duty, that growth will be affected. E-commerce will get a poor reputation because customers who feel, as a matter of principle, that they should pay duties when that is asked of them and not try to evade them—as is happening in some cases—will think that they have been stung.

Someone might purchase a pack of CDs at an advertised price equivalent to £30, which is a lot less than he would pay in the shops here, only to discover, when the goods come to his door, that he is liable for another £15 of duty. Clearly he would feel that the price was not quite as advertised and that he had been led up the garden path.

Mr. Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston)

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman and the House as I have to go up to Committee in a moment. Specifically on CDs, how would he make the new clause work in the context of music that is delivered electronically? That method of delivery is becoming increasingly prevalent and, following mergers such as those announced in the past few days, it will become even more prevalent.

Mr. St. Aubyn

The hon. Gentleman raises a good point. There are instances in which the collection of duty will be very difficult in any event. Indeed, one can imagine someone purchasing an expensive CD piece by piece to come within the £18 threshold; no single purchase would cross that threshold, which has been around for many years. I am grateful to him for showing, in another way, how the existing legislative framework is totally inadequate. The real mischief here—the real danger—is that customers will get the intelligence that buying on the net is full of risks, one of which is that they may be stung for unexpected duty. The other risk is that those who are currently building up, in the interests of a competitive market, the business of delivering these goods from one country to another will be deterred from doing so if they find that they have a mounting problem of bad debt when they pay duty to Customs and Excise and cannot recover it from the customers at that point. There are those providing the service now who are contemplating how to protect their position. They will work out ways in which they can recover the duty.

In the end, if the problem grows to become just a little more severe than it is already—and we are all predicting a massive growth in the scale of this business—it will be the Exchequer that finds it is losing out. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the Government to accept the clause, accept that the principles behind it should be taken forward in another place and put, perhaps with better wording, into the body of the Bill. Alternatively, the Minister should assure the House that she understands the problems that are being raised this afternoon and come up with her own remedy in good time for another place to consider it.

Dr. Ladyman

If my recollection is accurate, on Second Reading the hon. Gentleman argued that the Bill was far too complicated and needed to be much simpler, just based on what is now clause 7. Can he enlighten us as to why he wants to put this horrendously complex and unworkable piece of legislation into this Bill, which is clearly the wrong Bill for it?

Mr. St. Aubyn

It has become evident to me that the growth of business-to-customer e-commerce will be jeopardised if a fundamental principle—that of showing that the taxation due on a purchase is clearly stated when someone makes the purchase—is not enforced at this stage; the entire business of e-commerce will rapidly be discredited. If we are passing a Bill making electronic signatures legal, we are presumably expecting that the quantity of this business will grow substantially. We do not want to see that business grow on a false premise that tax liabilities are not properly spelled out when such deals are confirmed.

Dr. Ladyman

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way again. The point of commitment, if someone is buying something from abroad, will be at the point when they place their order. I can understand how the hon. Gentleman could impose this restriction on British businesses selling abroad, but how could he impose it on foreign businesses that we are buying from?

Mr. St. Aubyn

I hope that I shall be forgiven if I did not explain the issue clearly enough. It is, I admit, by a backdoor route and by a transfer of responsibility; nevertheless, if the clause became law the onus on the vendor's agents would rapidly be transferred back on to the vendor himself or herself in the country of origin of the goods, because no one would be prepared to take goods into this country on behalf of a foreign supplier and find that they could not then collect the duty from the purchaser in this country. They would tell the vendor, "I must have a counter-indemnity for this." Otherwise, they would be very foolish. At that point the vendor would find, even though not subject to UK law, that it is very much in their interests to make sure that they properly display the liability to Customs and other levies in this country for goods purchased here. Otherwise, they will find that they, via their UK agents, become liable for the loss of revenue incurred from the failure to make clear to customers in this country a warning of what their liability will be.

Mr. Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam)

I have some sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's intention, which is to promote electronic commerce. But I am concerned that he is just talking about goods exchanged through electronic communications. Is he proposing a different regime for when, for example, I contract to buy a book from Amazon.com than if I write off to a bookseller in New York and ask it to send me books? Is he suggesting that electronic communications should be treated differently from the other trade, which is already going on and growing as a natural feature of the globalisation of trade?

Mr. St. Aubyn

So far as I am aware, there are no duties and levies on books, because we do not believe—at least, in our party and, I believe, in the Labour party; perhaps the Liberals are different these days—in a tax on learning. The awareness of internet trade means, of course, that the growth of conventional trade is brought along behind it, with the wind in its sails.

People who opt for conventional methods of purchase from other parts of the world—because of the less convenient means of purchase—will presumably do so because they are aware of the existence of the new clause. If it brings about an awareness of liability to tax, which is what we want it to do, it will have done its job.

Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham)

My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument. Is not the purpose of the new clause to avoid stealth taxes, and is it not that fact that has raised the hackles of the hon. Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman)?

Mr. St. Aubyn

As always, my hon. Friend has introduced an entirely new dimension to the debate. I think that, in this instance, the customs duty that the authorities seek to collect from the purchaser in this country could be described as another stealth tax.

If the Bill is enacted without the protection of new clause 3 or a similar provision with the same good intention, many people in this country may conclude that the problem with buying through the internet is that the buyer is caught by a stealth tax. In this case the stealth tax is a customs duty, but time and again we see that international vendors do not make clear on the web page the liability of the customers in this country whom they are asking to buy from them.

Given the technology that is available nowadays, it would be very simple to display a warning sign conveying to customers whose purchases amount to more than £18, or 28 ecu, that they will be liable for a tax. In fact, it would not be all that difficult for vendors to include a calculation of the tax: it would be good customer service, although the new clause does not require it. The law should not be too specific, and I know that we are all keen for the Bill to be technology-neutral, but citizens of this country have a fundamental right to be aware of the taxes for which they are liable.

Passing a burden or liability on to the vendor's agents deals with the need for the vendor to display the message. In other instances in which business is done outside this country—there are instances in income and capital gains tax legislation—United Kingdom agents of overseas operators are made liable for taxation. I think the Minister, as a former Treasury Minister, will confirm that UK agents collecting rent for overseas property owners whose property is in this country may be made liable for the tax on that rent if it is not otherwise collected.

Under this and earlier Governments, we have already endorsed the clear principle that agents of overseas operators may be made liable, in the full expectation that they will then require a counter-indemnity from their overseas counter party. We have enabled our legislation to extend further than United Kingdom citizens when the actions of overseas agents and operators affect those citizens. I am sure that Labour Members who speak today will confirm that they too are concerned about the mischief that the new clause seeks to correct. They may feel that it contains imperfections, and I would be the first to admit, as a Back Bencher without the departmental resources that the Minister has to hand, that it could be improved; but I ask them, as I have asked the Minister, to recognise the existence of that mischief and the need to deal with it before we spur the growth of this market—which the Bill will do—on the false premise that people can be sold goods without being shown the tax for which they are liable.

4.30 pm

Mr. Duncan

The House should be grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) for moving the new clause because it highlights an area of growing complication. The hon. Members for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) and for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) have compared physical delivery of a product with what can now happen over the internet: supply of goods—perhaps sound or data—that have a commercial value, but are not wrapped or posted and so do not go through or over a border that is policed normally. Furthermore, the growth of the internet will lead to many more cross-border purchases between an individual and a company, as distinct from an individual buying from a local company that itself will enter a cross-border transaction.

The new clause is essentially an attempt to introduce some consumer protection into e-commerce. Domestically, we either have an all-inclusive price—a price plus VAT—or a price saying that VAT has to be added. In commercial practice throughout the world—for example, well-established habits in shipping—something is sold either free on board, or with carriage, insurance and freight all to be paid for. Now we see the rise of a different category of trade that will not have the same clarity as conventional patterns of trade. Cross-border pricing habits and the contractual terms that govern them will not have the openness and clarity of traditional patterns.

Therefore, the new clause is an attempt to introduce some clarity into e-commerce for the protection of the consumer. It calls for the consumer to be given the whole picture, wherever possible, before he is asked to enter a contract.

Given the issues that I have explained, I ask the Minister to explain what her policy is in those difficult areas. I have broad sympathy with her as she tries to unravel the problem and to get to grips with it. None the less, the new clause highlights the problem and presents to the Minister a call for a clear explanation, so that I, the House and consumers will know where they stand in law.

The Minister for Small Business and E-Commerce (Ms Patricia Hewitt)

I was surprised to hear the explanation by the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) of the new clause. I had thought that Conservative Members were against imposing new burdens on business, but the new clause would impose appalling burdens on British business, without securing any significant gains for British consumers.

The new clause deals with who should be responsible for knowing what taxes are due in cross border e-commerce trade. The problem is that, in addition to imposing burdens on British companies that want to use electronic commerce to export their products and services, the new clause would severely damage the chances of achieving our objective of making the UK the best place in the world for commerce.

As has been pointed out, the new clause discriminates against electronic commerce because it requires a vendor to disclose the purchaser's liability for tax before a contract is finalised and, if that is not done, the vendor or his agent to become liable for any undisclosed taxes. Even if that principle were sound—it goes too far—surely it should apply to all business, not only to business that is contracted through the medium of an electronic communication.

The Bill seeks to get rid of barriers in existing law that discriminate against new technologies. We are not trying to impose new barriers that will inhibit the growth of electronic commerce.

Mr. St. Aubyn

Why is it such a huge burden on a vendor who uses the electronic medium to ensure that, when someone buys something, a message splashes up on the screen saying, "Do you realise that you are liable for customs duty on this purchase? Please click on the box yes or no before you proceed." With electronic commerce, that is a light burden for any vendor. It is precisely why it is appropriate for the new clause to apply to electronic commerce. It would be harder to ensure that that sequence of questions was asked in a more conventional format.

Ms Hewitt

I find that point wholly unconvincing. If the hon. Gentleman's principle were sound, someone selling by mail order or by telephone to a consumer in another country would be equally able to say, in large letters, "You need to be aware as a consumer that you may be liable for taxes in your own country."

Mr. St. Aubyn

Is the Minister suggesting that it is a bad idea to ask businesses to expose to customers their liability to tax?

Ms Hewitt

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I am coming to precisely that point.

The issue we are considering is whether we should require vendors to disclose to a purchaser in a foreign country their liability to tax in their own country. The balance that we have to strike is between giving adequate information to consumers and imposing the burden on a vendor of having to warn customers in detail of the tax liabilities that they may face in their own countries under local rules.

The European Union's distance selling directive will require that, prior to the conclusion of any distance contract, the consumer has to be provided with, among other things, the price of the goods or services, including all taxes and, where appropriate, delivery costs. Once that directive is in force, it will apply the underlying objective, which I think that the hon. Gentleman seeks to enforce, to all consumer contracts within the European Union. It will apply, in other words, to all contracts involving distance-selling means, not simply those that are concluded by means of electronic communication, as the hon. Gentleman is proposing. I think that that is absolutely right and that it goes far enough.

The problem with new clause 3 is that it goes well beyond the scope of the distance selling directive, which is confined to the member states of the European Union, and imposes on United Kingdom vendors the requirement to explain to foreign customers outside the European Union the tax liabilities of those customers in their own country. Customers, particularly business customers from non-European Union countries, will normally be aware of their tax liabilities.

In the European Union context, we are balancing the imposition of burdens on United Kingdom vendors selling to consumers in other European Union member states against the protection that we can rightly gain for British consumers when buying from vendors elsewhere in the European Union. New clause 3 would impose burdens on British businesses that are seeking to sell to consumers outside the European Union without in practice obtaining any new benefits for British consumers themselves.

We want businesses to trade online. We want to get a million small and medium businesses trading online by no later than 2002 because of the enormous competitive advantage that they could gain. However, we do not want to require any British business that is trading online to be an expert on the value added tax, sales tax and duty laws in any non-European Union country that they might sell to, and then to make them liable if they get it wrong. Such a requirement would be a quite extraordinary burden on our businesses and would hardly encourage the development of electronic commerce.

Mr. St. Aubyn

As the Minister well knows, I am not proposing that. However, will she explain why the requirement would be a burden only on United Kingdom vendors, and why the provisions of the new clause would not apply, for example, to a United States supplier to a United Kingdom consumer? A US supplier, because of the liability transferred from its UK agent, would have to disclose the UK purchaser's tax liability, which would be a benefit for the UK purchaser.

Ms Hewitt

The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood the effect of his own amendment. The provisions of new clause 3 would bite on British business. When this Parliament makes laws, those laws apply to those who are within our jurisdiction. We cannot pass a law that would require vendors in, for example, the United States—where the price in shops is exclusive of sales tax, and it is only when paying at the till that one discovers the amount of sales tax—who wish to sell to British consumers to start to price inclusively, as we tend to do in the UK. It would be impractical to try to impose that liability by means of the device of the vendor's agent. Many vendors in other countries simply would not bother to sell to British consumers.

I agree with the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton about the need for transparency and clarity in pricing on websites. We are trying to encourage that by supporting codes of practice that can be agreed both in the European context and beyond. That approach is better than trying to legislate in a complex manner that would not achieve the desired ends.

Mr. Allan

The Minister argues that one cannot expect every website in the world to be programmed with the duty rates for every country from Argentina to Uzbekistan, but are the codes of practice that she mentioned similar to those that exist already? They require websites to make it clear that consumers are liable to taxes in their own countries. How far has the Minister got towards establishing agreement at a global level that such warnings should be available?

Ms Hewitt

That is precisely what we are aiming to achieve, through the distance-selling directive in the European Union and, more generally, through the working party of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and other international forums.

The hon. Member for Guildford referred to British consumers' liability for VAT and import duty on physical goods imported from outside the European Union. Such goods are liable to taxation on importation, according to their nature and value.

Exceptions exist, however: for example, music downloaded on line may be bought from America but delivered digitally through the medium of the internet. In those circumstances, it would be regarded as having been taxed in the United States.

The difficulty for British and other European businesses is that the same process does not operate the other way around. When a United Kingdom business sells online music to an American customer, it has to account for VAT at 17.5 per cent. The European Commission is especially keen to change the law to provide a level playing field for European businesses. We expect the Commission to bring forward detailed legislative proposals by April, and my hon. Friend the Paymaster General will respond to those proposals when they are published.

However, if the new clause is pressed to a Division, I shall ask Labour Members to oppose it. It would discriminate against electronic commerce and therefore inhibit it, and it would impose unnecessary and undesirable red tape on British business.

Mr. St. Aubyn

I find the Minister's reply cheap and disappointing. She tried to score some political points that were irrelevant to such a technical debate. The new clause does not require vendors to calculate purchasers' tax liability. The new clause simply states that the liability of the vendor shall be displayed for any duties … arising in the country of destination. It does not state that the amount has to be specified. If the warning were not displayed, the new clause would provide that the amount could not be claimed from the purchaser. That knocks the first of the Minister's arguments on the head.

The Minister referred to an EU draft directive. I was sorry to see her behave as more of a little European than an internationalist on the matter. We are talking about an international business, involving people in the United States and in other non-EU countries. The idea that EU countries can create a fortress in which e-commerce can be conducted and which will keep the Yanks out is totally naive—especially in the context of e-commerce.

I am very disappointed that the Minister chooses to wait for an EU directive. She should display more imagination and leadership in the matter. That is what we require from the Government, if this country is ever to become a centre for e-commerce.

Mr. Brian Cotter (Weston-super-Mare)

Does not the hon. Gentleman consider the European dimension to be important? Does he agree that the single currency would make intra-Community internet trading more vibrant?

Mr. St. Aubyn

Time is short: we must not play with the hon. Gentleman's obsessions, or indulge him further.

I am most concerned that the Minister dismisses the idea that we can do anything about a US-UK internet relationship. Much internet business comes from the US and it is vital that purchasers in this country have confidence in the processes according to which such sales are conducted. I totally reject the Minister's argument that the clause has no bearing on that matter, as that is precisely the matter that the new clause addresses.

If US suppliers had to be told by their UK agents that they were liable for a tax that could not be collected from UK purchasers unless the purchasers' general liability for any such tax were clearly displayed, those UK agents would say, with one voice, that the suppliers should make that display clear on their screens. They would add that the suppliers should also furnish some form of indemnity—the system would not work without that.

In the current environment, UK business will suffer from the Government's inaction. It is in the long-term interests of UK agents to compete for the business of US suppliers. Because of the competitive pressures and those long-term interests, they will have to bear a continuing loss of revenue. They will have to pay out duties to the Exchequer, which they will not be able to recover from UK customers because it will not have been displayed as a liability in the first place.

US companies will pocket the money, but UK consumers will feel that they only just got away without being stung. The real sufferer will be UK business, as the Government have failed to pick up the challenge that the new clause represents. I am sorry that that argument has failed to penetrate the Minister's mind. That gives me little hope for the success of her e-commerce initiatives.

In the circumstances, it would be wrong to press the new clause to a vote, but I assure the Minister that this vitally important matter will be raised again in another place ere long. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

4.45 pm

Mr. Duncan

I beg to move amendment No. 5, in page 2, line 7, at end insert—

1. "(1A) In order to grant an approval the Secretary of State must be satisfied that that person—
1. (a) will comply, in providing the services in respect of which he is approved, with such technical and other requirements as may be prescribed;
2. (b) is a person in relation to whom such other requirements as may be prescribed are, and will continue to be, satisfied;
3. (c) is, and will continue to be, able and willing to comply with any requirements that the Secretary of State is proposing to impose by means of conditions of the approval; and
4. (d) is otherwise a fit and proper person to be approved in respect of those services.
2. (1B) Regulations made by virtue of paragraph (a) or (b) of subsection (1A) may frame a requirement for the purposes of that subsection by reference to the opinion of a person specified in the regulations, or of a person chosen in a manner determined in accordance with the regulations.".

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst)

With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 6, in page 2, line 8, after "arrangements", insert "for approval". No. 7, in page 2, leave out lines 12 and 13.

No. 8, in page 2, leave out lines 27 to 42.

No. 9, in page 2, line 44, after "conditions", insert— referenced above in subsection (2)(b)". No. 10, in page 3, line 12, leave out "(3)" and insert "(1A)".

Mr. Duncan

In effect, the amendments would rewrite clause 2. They would not change the clause's meaning, but would merely put it into better legislative language. It may help the House if I explain, very briefly, the origin of the amendments.

All hon. Members will agree that deliberations on the Bill in Committee were constructive. No member of the Committee indulged in silly party politics, but everyone wanted to improve the Bill wherever possible. That followed Conservative Members' success in forcing publication of the draft Bill over the summer, and in arguing for and securing the removal of part III of that draft Bill.

However, Conservative Members in the Committee argued their corner. The House will be grateful to the Minister for her rational approach to the debate. She said that she would examine some of the points that we made and consider some possible amendments for discussion on Report. To that end, I wrote to the Minister on 5 January, making four points which are the kernel of the amendments before the House today. She courteously wrote back to me on 17 January, essentially accepting three out of the four proposals, most of which have now been included in the Government amendments, which we shall come to later.

Amendment No. 5, however, contains a proposal that the Minister did not accept, although I think it fair to say that she sympathised with what we said in Committee. We believe that the structure of the clause is very difficult to understand. The wording is such that readers of the legislation and interpreters of the language have to dart from one part of the clause to another to get the whole picture. In Committee, we moved an amendment to delete clause 2(5), which we felt to be broad-brush and meaningless. It was an example of nonsensical language—a nightmare for plaintiffs and defendants, although lawyers will make money if ever this part of the Bill is referred to in a legal case.

In response to our amendment, the Minister said, quite reasonably, that she would look further at the wording of the subsections to see whether they could be simplified without reducing the necessary powers of the authority. Following our conversations, she advised me that parliamentary draftsmen had not come up with a solution, but maintained that our amendment did not quite achieve what we thought it would. However, I think that it does.

The amendment would rewrite the clause. Instead of its current hotch-potch structure, we have explained the hurdles that those who wish to be registered as cryptography providers have to overcome so that they can be properly understood. We have introduced a sort of "gating" procedure, whereby anyone who wishes so to be registered can achieve one objective, then another, in succession, to the point where, clearly understood by everyone involved and by anyone interpreting the law, the end game can be reached.

The order of our proposals follow a logical process. They establish what is to be proved; the required status of the applicants; the procedures to determine that status; the nature of the arrangements, including the power to impose conditions; the details of the conditions that can be imposed; the restriction on conditions that can be imposed, and the power to enforce one type of condition. They follow a logical progression so that the law, clearly understood, can be followed by anyone so applying.

I hope that, even if the Minister cannot accept the amendment, she will admit that the clause is a bit of a mess. When the parliamentary draftsmen have a little more time on their hands, perhaps they can study it again so that, between us, we can make simple and clear law that will benefit everyone.

Ms Hewitt

As the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) has said, we had a valuable and constructive series of discussions in Committee. I think that the Bill, which had already been significantly improved through consultation, was further improved as a result. I undertook to consider whether we could simplify the clause while preserving the necessary powers of the approvals authority.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for tabling constructive amendments, designed to simplify the clause. They would reorder the clause and add some cross-references without changing its effect. However, whether one arrangement is clearer than another is a subjective judgment, and I doubt that parliamentary counsel would agree with the aspersions cast by the hon. Gentleman on the original drafting. I would like to consider further the way in which the amendments have been drafted, and to discuss further with parliamentary counsel whether a rearrangement of the clause, along the lines suggested by the hon. Gentleman, or in some other way, would help to clarify it. If we reach that conclusion, we shall table the necessary amendments in another place. I hope that, in the light of that undertaking, the hon. Gentleman will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. Duncan

It is always unsettling when sweet reason breaks out across the Floor of the House. However, on this unique occasion, that seems to have happened. Therefore, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.