Standing Committee Debates

AFTER A BRIEF discussion on the possibilities of permitting the use of laptop computers in committee (not yet allowed) the committee turned to Schedule 24 which relates to relief for creative artists' fluctuating profits.

Oliver Letwin welcomed the Schedule saying that it offered the 'clearest possible exposition of averaging'. However he raised three questions. Firstly with regard to the taper for variations in annual profits of between 70 and 75 per cent he suggested that it would be simpler to have a cut-off level of either 70 or 75 per cent. Secondly he noted that the Schedule related exclusively to artists but suggested that it would be helpful to farmers and their advisers if the new text could apply to them as the existing legislation for farmers' averaging was 'not applied to their income in a way that an ordinary human...