INCOME TAX BILL [H.L.] (Hansard, 5 February 1952)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD SIMONDS)
My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I understand that the usual practice is to move these Amendments en bloc. I therefore beg to move that the Amendments proposed by the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills be agreed to.

§ LORD RADCLIFFE
May I take a few moments of your Lordships' time to say something about those persons who are really responsible for the massive Bill which is now reported to your Lordships' House? I have the honour to be Chairman of the Joint Committee whose Report is before you. As a Committee, we, of course, gave our time and our best attention to the consideration of the Bill, and we made a number of Amendments which are now before you, mostly on matters of detail which, I think, had the effect of improving the Bill. Let me say at once to your Lordships that, in a matter of this great complexity, we were by ourselves rather like children paddling on the shores of a great ocean. It was a vastly complex subject, and if left to ourselves we should not have completed our task because we should not have known how to begin it. The fact that this Bill has assumed the shapely structure that it has is due, primarily, to the work of the Parliamentary Counsel who were responsible for its drafting, and a Committee of officials from the Inland Revenue Department who, over a long period, have been working upon the task of putting the Bill into shape—a formidable task for the consolidator because, since the last Consolidation Act of 1918, there have been piled on top of it some fifty Acts, voluminous, complicated, often obscure, and not always consistent with themselves. I want to take this opportunity of putting on record my tribute to the valuable—because I think it is valuable—work of those gentlemen.
I will not depart from precedent by mentioning the names of any of the In- 1062 land Revenue officials, but I will for once, if I may, refer to the Parliamentary Counsel of whose work I am speaking, Sir John Rowlatt, because it is a pleasant thing to be able to associate his name as the true author of this Bill with that of his father, Sir Sidney Rowlatt, a Judge who, I think all lawyers would say, did more than any other single Judge to elucidate and to rationalise the complex with the work of all these gentlemen. I was Chairman of the Joint Committee of the two Houses and, as such, I had a special opportunity of being in touch with the work of all these gentlemen. I became increasingly conscious of their real mastery of the subject, both in principle and in detail; of their assiduous determination not to rest until they got to the bottom and found the best solution to every problem which successively presented itself; and of their consistent desire to be fair and impartial in their dealings. Those qualities, I believe, are qualities which inspire the public servants of this country, and I am glad to place on record my appreciation of them when I come into touch with them, as I came into touch with them in the consideration of the Bill which is now before your Lordships.

§ VISCOUNT HALL
In the absence of my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition, I should like to say that my noble friends have no objection to the Amendments. I have been asked to express our hearty congratulations and thanks to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Radcliffe, and all who have been associated with him in this very important work. I have looked at the number of clauses and Schedules. They must, I think, be a record for a Bill of this kind, for there are 532 clauses and 25 Schedules. It is a monumental work; and I am sure that I speak for myself and for every noble Lord here in saying that we are very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Radcliffe, and to all associated with the preparation of the Bill.

§ LORD SCHUSTER
I should be glad if your Lordships would allow me to delay for a moment or so the passage of this Bill, while I add my testimony to what has been said by my noble and learned friend and by the noble Viscount, Lord Hall. This is indeed a massive Bill—so massive that when I tried to weigh 1063 it in the Lord Chancellor's office a little while ago it broke the weighing machine. As the noble Viscount has pointed out, it has 532 clauses and 25 Schedules, and repeals in whole or in part sixty Acts of Parliament. The successful preparation of the Bill was an effort such as Hercules might have made. Sir John Rowlatt—my noble and learned friend has already outraged our Parliamentary convention, and rightly so, by mentioning his name—brought great courage to the task, besides the high intelligence, the industry and the learning which we expect always to find in the office of Parliamentary Counsel. He brought also an impetuous ferocity of approach which is unusual in that State Department; and he presented the Bill to us and explained it to us in a manner which cannot be sufficiently commended. As to the Revenue authorities, they shall remain, so far as I am concerned, anonymous. It must be pleasing to them to have, for once, a word of praise, rather than one of obloquy.
Perhaps I may be permitted to say one word about my noble and learned friend Lord Radcliffe himself. When I heard that we were not to have the services of the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, as Chairman of the Joint Committee, my heart sank, for he has led us through many technical Bills during the last three or four years. My spirit revived when I heard that Lord Radcliffe had generously offered to add this task to the other great labours which he has discharged for the public good. All of us who have been acquainted with the law have for years known Lord Radcliffe as a distinguished lawyer and as a persuasive advocate; and during the last few months many persons outside the law, as well as in it, have heard him expound the subject of political science with a clarity and facility of phrase which everyone who heard him must have envied. It was an advocacy through which everyone must have received delight. We were greatly to be congratulated that he should have been good enough to accept the Chairmanship of the Joint Committee. But for his 1064 Chairmanship, I do not think it would have been possible for us to get through the Bill in anything like the time it took, or for it to have the lucid appearance which it possesses.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
The noble Viscount, Lord Hall, as the spokesman for the Opposition, has been good enough to make some observations on this Bill. I think I should be failing in my duty to the Committee if I did not add my testimony to his, and to that of other noble Lords who have spoken, and say a word concerning the debt we owe to the draftsmen of this Bill. It is an admirable rule that we, and in particular a Minister, should not mention any civil servant by name, but I propose to break that admirable rule by mentioning the name of Sir John Rowlatt, who has done such an excellent job in drafting this Bill. I should like to associate myself with the testimony of Lord Radcliffe. Sir John Rowlatt is a true son of his father, who was one of the wisest and best Judges before whom I have ever pleaded. But I hope the fact that we are breaking this rule and praising a civil servant will not be regarded as a precedent for breaking the rule and blaming a civil servant. One other word I must say. If we owe a debt to the draftsmen, we owe it also to the noble and learned Lord who acted as Chairman of the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills for the skill and assiduity which he brought to that task. We hope that he will realise how grateful noble Lords on both sides of the House are to him, for all his labours and for the skill which he has so lavishly displayed, and to his Committee.