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Finance Bill

My hon. Friend is dead right, and I agree with him entirely. The idea of bureaucracy regulating entrepreneurial banks will never be terribly effective. To return to clause 92, I am pleased that we are approaching the issue in the way that we are. I am sure that the Government will listen hard to what the industry says, and I am sure that we can get things right. As for why we are focusing on tax as we are, to me, that does not pose the sort of problem that it seems to pose for the hon. Member for Fareham. In view of the multiplicity of taxation arrangements burgeoning throughout the world, I can quite understand the position of the United States Government under President Obama and that of the German and French Governments, who have always been strong on this issue, and why we have a particular focus in the UK on strengthening tax function and tax accountability; the words in the Bill speak of all this. It seems inevitable that that should be part of the review that we are having, when so much of the tax take appears to be disappearing overseas. I am not sure that that is directly linked, but I cannot help but feel that it is part of the mentality that has led to this part of the Bill. I welcome the provisions. The chief finance office should be clearly seen to have an independent role in accounting to the board. When my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary puts the Government's case, I wonder whether he could tell us whether it is automatically assumed that the chief finance office will be a board member, because the Bill refers to officers or directors. It is terribly important that the person charged with that responsibility should be a director, not some officer who can escape a sense of personal responsibility. A finance office in a major British multinational or international company will feel a heavy personal commitment and a personal burden, which he will have to bear in the interests of the whole company, with a direct responsibility enshrined in law and a fine attached, related to the performance of that function. If a finance officer were to be fined, in all probability he would seek and obtain an indemnity from the company, and rightly so. Nevertheless, the fact that he has been fined will weigh heavily on him, if he is responsible in the exercise of his duties, and therefore reinforce the general sense of this part of the Bill, and the general purpose for which the Government have introduced it—and I am pleased to see it there. I am sure that the Financial Secretary will reassure us on the need for consultation and the other matters that the industry will bring to him in due course. We look forward to hearing what he has to tell us in that respect.