## Facts

- Teachers at an independent fee-paying school received a benefit allowing their children to attend the school at concessionary fees (about one-fifth of standard fees).
- The teachers were “higher-paid employees” under the Finance Act 1976, making the benefit potentially taxable as a “cash equivalent.”
- The dispute concerned how to calculate the employer’s “cost” of providing the benefit under the Finance Act 1976: the revenue authority argued for average cost; the taxpayers argued for marginal cost (additional expenses actually incurred).
- During the bill’s passage, a responsible minister made statements in Parliament indicating that, for benefits of this type, taxation was intended to reflect marginal cost.
- A tax tribunal found for the taxpayers; the High Court and Court of Appeal reversed, applying average cost and refusing to consider parliamentary debate materials.

## Issues

1. Whether, and in what limited circumstances, courts may refer to parliamentary materials (including Hansard) to interpret primary legislation consistently with parliamentary privilege.
2. Whether the “cash equivalent” of the concessionary-fee benefit under the Finance Act 1976 is determined by average cost or marginal cost.

## Decision

- The House of Lords allowed the taxpayers’ appeal and restored the tribunal’s outcome.
- The majority held that courts may consult Hansard as an aid to interpretation where the statutory language is ambiguous or obscure, or where a literal reading produces an absurd result, and the parliamentary material contains a clear, unequivocal statement of the legislative intention on the point.
- The majority concluded that consulting Hansard for this limited purpose does not violate parliamentary privilege because it does not impeach or question parliamentary proceedings.
- Applying the minister’s clear statements, the majority held the taxable “cash equivalent” was the marginal cost to the school of educating the teachers’ children, not an apportioned average of overall costs.
- The Lord Chancellor dissented on admissibility (favoring the traditional exclusion of Hansard on cost and certainty grounds) but agreed that, on the statute’s proper construction, the taxpayers should succeed on the marginal-cost measure.

## Legal Principles

- Parliamentary materials may be used to interpret primary legislation only where:
  - the statutory provision is ambiguous or obscure, or its literal meaning leads to an absurdity; and
  - the material relied upon is a clear, direct, and unequivocal statement by the minister or bill promoter addressing the disputed point.
- Such reference is permissible only to assist in construing the enacted words, not to replace them with a different rule derived from debate.
- Limited reliance on Hansard in these conditions is compatible with parliamentary privilege because it does not involve judicial questioning of what was said in Parliament; it is used to identify the intention behind ambiguous text.
- For employment benefits taxed by reference to the employer’s “cost,” the proper measure may be marginal cost where that reflects the intended statutory meaning in context.

## Conclusion

The House of Lords held that, in strictly limited cases of ambiguity (or absurdity), courts may consider clear ministerial statements in Hansard to resolve statutory meaning without infringing parliamentary privilege, and it applied that approach to tax the teachers’ concessionary school-fee benefit by marginal cost rather than average cost.


Pepper v. Hart, [1993] A.C. 593 (H.L. 1992)