§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. Malcolm Wicks)I beg to move,
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Learning and Skills Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise the making of provision for the manner in which payments to trainees are to be treated for the purposes of the Income Tax Acts.This Ways and Means resolution is necessary to ensure that we can give effect to amendments to the Employment Act 1988 by means of the Learning and Skills Bill. The amendments that we shall introduce later this afternoon are necessary, in part, to ensure that money paid to trainees continues to be exempted from income tax. The Secretary of State is currently able to use his powers under section 26 of the Employment Act to ensure that money paid to trainees is not rendered subject to income tax. Money is paid to trainees by the Secretary of State by means of his powers under section 2 of the Employment and Training Act 1973.Later today, we propose to amend the Employment Act 1988 by means of the Learning and Skills Bill to allow the Secretary of State to exercise similar judgments over persons who receive moneys in respect of training provided by the Learning and Skills Council and the National Council for Education and Training in Wales. The Learning and Skills Council and the NCETW will become responsible for securing provision for many of those trainees under sections 2, 3, 31 and 32 respectively, and they will be able to pay money to trainees under sections 5(1)(c) and 34(1)(c) respectively. The Ways and Means resolution that covered section 26 of the 1988 Act did not extend to persons who are in receipt of allowances under 5(1)(c) or 34(1)(c) of the Learning and Skills Bill. That is why we have introduced today's Ways and Means resolution.
§ Question put and agreed to.