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Finance Bill

I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. Consultation should have taken place before the Bill was introduced, but now we have the Bill, we need to consider what to do with it. The thrust of my amendment is that we need to get the proposals right, and we need time to do so. If senior accounting officers are to sign off on whether they have appropriate systems of tax accounting for financial periods starting effectively from when the Bill is passed, they will need guidance. They will need to comply for the whole year, and they will have only a matter of weeks before they must know what is meant by the proposal. I would be pleased if the Financial Secretary followed my amendment and decided to defer implementation by a year. That would achieve the objective of the hon. Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson) in getting consultation, it would achieve what I would like, and it would give industry and advisers time to make it work properly. My biggest concerns are about the Bill's unintended consequences, its impact on our economy's competitiveness, and the costs that will be incurred. The regulatory impact assessment flagged big concerns about the impact of the Bill, and it reminded me of the impact that the passing of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation in the States had on American businesses, and of its benefit to London's competitiveness. I have always joked that a statue should be erected in the City of London, first to reflect the contribution of Messrs. Sarbanes and Oxley to the success of the City, and secondly, as a reminder that hastily introduced, ill-thought-through legislation can be damaging.