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Finance Bill

The hon. Gentleman has long experience of business, both in the UK and overseas. He will understand the importance of remaining competitive and of always being vigilant about what other nations are doing. Tax has become an increasingly important issue when it comes to the location of businesses and, given that both capital and labour are very mobile now, we need to pay attention to it. It is not good enough to say, "Okay, France and Germany have higher rates than we do." We need to look at the broad perspective, because there are other countries that are happy to compete for inward investment and people to join their work forces.