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Finance Bill

As always, my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We made that point in the debate on the previous clause. It shows the lack of predictability, consistency, planning and consultation in the Government. We need planning. We need to consult thoroughly with businesses so that they can plan in the long term, not the short term. Mr. Neale's justification for the change of direction was that the Treasury was"““taking this step both to simplify the tax and to put it on a long-term basis.””" That statement was made on 17 October. On 24 January, the Chancellor changed his mind again. Not only do the proposals fail to provide simplification, but the Treasury's view of long-term tax planning appears to have shrunk to a window of a little over three months. In January, the Chancellor also seemed keen to emphasise that there were many alternatives for helping small businesses such as venture capital trusts and the enterprise investment scheme. However, venture capital trusts have been endlessly tinkered with by the Government. I remember the Committee's discussions on the second Finance Act of 2006, when the gross asset value for VCT investments was lowered to focus investment on small companies and, at the same time, the incentive for investors was cut by an increase in the tax they had to pay. The VCT regime has been a story of fluctuation and indecision, year in, year out. It sits badly with a capital gains tax regime that fluctuates not only year by year but month by month, yet the VCT regime is one of the crutches that the Chancellor is using to prop up his latest ill-fated reform. The Chancellor must decide which road he wants to follow: targeted incentives to encourage specific policy objectives, or a simpler, flatter tax.