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Finance Bill

I support the proposal for a tax law commission. If we had some weighing scales and put the current tax statutes on them we would find that there has been an increase of almost 50 per cent. since the influence of the hon. Member for Normanton (Ed Balls) began to be felt in the Treasury in 1997. I cannot believe that he thinks that the increase has had the desired effect. I accept that there is a tax law rewrite project, which has the desirable goal of helping to simplify matters, but the Liberal Democrats do not want policy to be determined by anyone other than elected Members of the House of Commons. However, the great ship of tax statute has become so barnacled that a short spell in dry dock with a good amount of scrubbing and cleaning is thoroughly desirable. The attempt to simplify, modernise, review and improve tax statute is an experiment that is worth trying. The Liberal Democrats therefore support the proposal. I hope that Government Members who are aware of the extent of tax statutes will do the same.