HL Deb 13 July 1966 vol 276 cc112-3

2.27 p.m.

LORD TWEEDSMUIR

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

[The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in respect of the importance of the service industries to the Highlands and North-East of Scotland, they are yet ready to announce what measures they propose to take, to offset the damaging effects of the selective employment tax on these regions.]

LORD HUGHES

My Lords, the Government do not accept that the selective employment tax will have damaging effects in the Highlands and the North-East of Scotland. Therefore the question of special offsetting measures does not arise.

LORD TWEEDSMUIR

My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for his second terse and extremely optimistic Answer, and I should like to ask him this further question. What is the sense of giving the Highlands and Islands Development Board about£500,000, at most, in this present financial year, in order to boost development, and removing£2 million from that area through the medium of this vicious tax?

LORD HUGHES

My Lords, there is no question of giving the Highlands and Islands Development Board £500,000 "at most". My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has repeatedly stated that the Highlands and Islands Development Board will be given adequate funds to undertake the tasks which they seek to do.

THE EARL OF SELKIRK

My Lords, can the noble Lord say what will be the effect of the selective employment tax on the Highlands, if it is not damaging?

LORD HUGHES

My Lords, the Government's policies in the Highlands and Islands must be taken together, and I am quite satisfied that some of the forecasts made in relation to the effect of the selective employment tax will be as far from the mark as the predictions about the possible success which will attend the work of the Highlands and Islands Development Board.

THE DUKE OF ATHOLL

My Lords, how does the noble Lord reconcile that reply with the fact that the proportion of the tax that is to be returned in premiums and refunds in the Highlands and Islands is something like 18 per cent., whereas the figure for the whole of England, which is hideously overpopulated, anyway, for the most part, is 68 per cent.? Perhaps the noble Lord can tell us how he marries those two figures together and still maintains that this tax will not damage the Highlands and Islands and other remote areas.

LORD HUGHES

Quite simply, my Lords. The Government do not operate the policies in the Highlands and Islands in watertight compartments, but work them to produce a satisfactory result in the whole.

LORD HARLECH

My Lords, is the noble Lord therefore saying that the Government will offset the effect of the selective employment tax, so far as the Highlands are concerned?

LORD HUGHES

My Lords, I have stated that there is no need to bring about special offsetting measures, because of the policies which the Government are operating for the Highlands and Islands as a whole.