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Corporation Tax Bill

I welcome the broad support that has been expressed— ... With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker; thank you. I welcome the constructive comments made by those who have spoken in the debate. I am grateful for the broad, if not absolutely universal, support that the Bill enjoys. There has been well deserved recognition for everyone who has contributed to this work. I add my thanks to those that have been expressed to the hon. Member for Gosport (Sir Peter Viggers). Let me respond to some of the points that have been made. It has been suggested that the rewrite goes only part of the way and that the underlying tax code should be simplified. We are, in fact, committed to simplification. There is a rolling programme in place, with reviews involving businesses and tax professionals and considering, for example, how corporation tax calculations and returns can be simplified for smaller companies and how to simplify rules on corporation tax for related companies. That work builds on recent reforms to the business tax system, and the rewrite complements our commitment. The hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke)—I am grateful for his support—referred to the possibility of establishing an independent body to oversee tax simplification. When he made that point in the Second Reading Committee, I responded that in my view another layer of bureaucracy is not the way forward. However, we have already had that debate. Comments were made about the length of the Bill and of tax legislation in general, to which I responded. I should, though, underline that in addition to making the legislation clearer, rewriting repeals a considerable amount of legislation. What matters most to businesses is not the number of pages in the legislation but the ease of using it. It may be some reassurance to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) and others that in the assessment of the World Bank the UK compares very favourably with countries with shorter legislation. It says that a standard UK company spends less time complying with our tax system than a similar company in any other G7 country—105 hours in the UK compared with 119 in Canada, 132 in France, 187 in the United States, 196 in Germany, 334 in Italy and 355 in Japan. I hope that that makes it clear that in fact our legislation is much easier to use. I am happy to put on the record again the reassurances that I set out in Committee, in response to the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire, about the circumstances in which the powers to amend legislation will be used. As with previous rewrite Acts, these powers will not be used unless the tax law rewrite project's consultative and steering committees agree that they should be. The Bill makes things easier for everybody using this legislation: from small companies to large companies; from local accountancy practices to the large accountancy firms. I am grateful for the broad support that has been expressed and commend it to the House. Question put and agreed to. Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.