Income Tax

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Monday 1st March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP) [V]]

A belated happy St David’s Day to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and to all hon. Members and staff of the House.

The Scottish National party will not oppose these regulations. Applying them to the delayed Euro 2020 finals is clearly an appropriate use of the power that has existed for a number of years to exempt from income tax liabilities anyone who works here for a relatively short time because they play for, coach or are otherwise involved with one of the national squads, or are UEFA-accredited staff and journalists. It is my understanding that this courtesy is often extended by other countries that host major sporting events; indeed, as we have heard, Governments of all the host countries had to sign up to this to take part in the bidding. I suppose we should welcome the fact that on this occasion the Government have actually honoured promises they made to our European neighbours; quite a few businesses in my constituency and elsewhere in Scotland wish that promises made to them were worth quite as much.

Clearly, because of covid, the tournament may not be the spectacle it might have been, but I hope that by the summer, the Governments of not only Scotland and the UK but all the qualifying countries have the pandemic sufficiently under control to allow the matches to be played—possibly not in front of full capacity crowds, but certainly with a big enough crowd at each game to give them the atmosphere that Europe’s top footballers clearly deserve. I can see that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is waiting to speak, so let me say to him and his colleagues from Northern Ireland that I am sorry that Northern Ireland did not quite make it through a very difficult qualifying group to make it four UK nations out of four taking part.

Given that it is St David’s day, may I wish Wales the very best of luck with their start to the tournament? I also send my very genuine and sincere good wishes to England, as they strive to finish second to Scotland and qualify on our coattails in group D. Who knows? We might be able to give the world’s media not just an exemption from income tax while they are here, but a truly historic sporting occasion—and not just because Scotland’s men’s football team is at a major tournament, because I can remember when that was quite a common occurrence. We might show the media something that has only ever happened once in history; they might be able to report on Scotland beating England at Twickenham and at Wembley in the same year. Now, that is something that I think we all look forward to in June this year.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

As a Welshman, I am not one to dwell on recent sporting victories that took place over the weekend.