Business

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean Excerpts

Tuesday 29th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that yesterday HMRC increased the tax on skips depositing in landfill sites from £2.50 per tonne to £64 per tonne, with no notice? That is an increase of nearly 2,500%. I thought that those sorts of figures were from wonga.com, not HMRC. Is he not aware of the great risk to business that causes and that it should therefore have been brought to Parliament and announced here?

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

My Lords, whatever the view of the noble Lord the Leader of the House about caravans and Cornish pasties, he must see that the changes that have been made to the courts and coroners proposals are highly significant. When my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition put her original question, she stressed that point to the noble Lord the Leader of the House. Unless I am mistaken, he did not address that very important point in his initial answer to her. I wonder whether he would be kind enough to take that point into account now in his reply to the House.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I was trying to be sensitive to the feelings of the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition. The Bill had its First Reading in this House yesterday, was published this morning and is in the Public Bill Office for all noble Lords to read. Perhaps I can thank the noble Baroness for making sure that noble Lords recognise what happened in the House yesterday; the information is therefore there for all to read.

That is evidence that announcements made in Parliament are very often ignored. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is making a mountain out of a molehill. The pasty tax is not a trivial matter, but it is surely not the most important and significant matter that we are dealing with.