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Finance (No. 2) Bill

I am grateful to you for that indication, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In round terms, there are another dozen items on the list that the British Chambers of Commerce appears to say are unnecessary and burdensome restraints on the freedom to do business in the United Kingdom, and I agree to the extent that they are restraints on the freedom of business conduct in the United Kingdom. There are also restraints in the Bill. Many of those restraints are very desirable, and we should have them in a civilised society. We can and should debate whether we have too many restraints, but the implication of that list of 69 regulations or measures—some of the items were not even regulations—is that we are all over-regulated. I am glad when I get into a motor vehicle that it has things like seat belts and airbags fitted and so on. I am glad that we have the kind of regulations that are in the Bill to stop people using tax loopholes. The right hon. Member for Wokingham talked about the idea that we can have a high-wage economy with low taxation. He cited Ireland—I have already made my remarks on Ireland—and the United States of America. He may well be absolutely right; I do not know enough about the tax regime in America, but I do know that, contrary to what many people believe, its regulatory system is quite burdensome on business, given its 52 jurisdictions, with the District of Columbia and the Federal Government. We would find some of its regulations byzantine. However, we can also have a relatively—I stress the word ““relatively””—high-tax economy with high wages. We see that most notably—