Bell: Election’s started early in North Douglas!
Backbench MHK John Houghton’s antics in the House of Keys have been branded ‘outrageous’ by the Chief Minister.
Mr Houghton was ordered to leave the Keys last week after refusing to apologise for questioning the honesty of the Treasury Minister.
Chief Minister Allan Bell said: ‘It seems the election is already well under way – it’s started a year or two early in North Douglas!’
Mr Houghton’s departure from the House followed an exchange over Treasury Minister’s Eddie Teare’s visit to Berlin last month to sign a global tax information exchange deal.
The backbencher suggested it was a ‘huge black cloud which is about to pour down on us’ and then called on Mr Teare ‘to be honest with the House for the first time this morning’.
This prompted Speaker Steve Rodan to demand he apologise. When he refused, he was instructed to leave the sitting.
But Mr Bell said he believed this was nothing to do with the global tax deal. He said: ‘It was outrageous. This has nothing whatsoever to do with FATCA and everything to do with the Debt Recovery Bill he is trying to promote.
‘It’s worth reflecting that Mr Houghton has supported the government’s negotiations in relation to FATCA and never once spoken against it.
‘He talks of the island losing millions of pounds of business and of a dark cloud hanging over us. Nothing could be further from the truth. If the Isle of Man had not taken the lead we would have been in a very difficult position and at some point could have been blacklisted.’
The historic agreement signed in Berlin places the Isle of Man among the first group of countries in the world to move to a new global standard for tax information exchange. It is based on the FATCA model of automatic exchange agreed with the US and the UK.
Earlier in last week’s Keys sitting Mr Houghton had criticised the Treasury over delays in implementing the Debt Recovery and Enforcement Act, which started out as his private member’s bill.
Mr Teare said the original legislation was ‘defective’ and there were data protection issues over the listing of outstanding executions for debt.
