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Corporation Tax Bill

My right hon. Friend makes an interesting point, and I hope that the Minister will respond to it. We will have another Finance Bill in the summer that I suspect will involve changes to corporation tax. The rate at which tax law changes is a problem: some changes are unavoidable, but many are not. The Bill is concerned with drafting problems and its intention is to make corporation tax law much clearer, but it does so at the expense of volume, as my right hon. Friend noted earlier. However, my main criticism is that it does not address the fundamental problem of tax law complexity. To be fair, it does not attempt to do so, but that is one of its weaknesses. Our tax system is widely regarded as overly complex. Professional bodies and business groups such as the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, the manufacturers' organisation EEF and the Chartered Institute of Taxation have all made that point again and again in recent months. It is notable that, when the firm United Business Media relocated from the UK to the Republic of Ireland, it cited tax complexity as one of the reasons behind the move. It is also worth reminding the House of the survey undertaken by the Tax Reform Commission in 2006. There were 600 responses from businesses of various sizes: 60 per cent. said that they were increasing spending on tax planning and compliance, and 78 per cent. said that tax complexity had increased in the previous five years. It is therefore clear that we do have a problem with tax complexity.