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Finance Bill

I declare an interest as the chairman of an SME that employs about 140 people and that pays well below the corporate tax rate affected by the present discussion, although we are hopeful that, one day, we will get there. We do, however, service a number of companies that are in the relevant tax bracket, and therein lies my interest, because supply chains are a vital component of the whole structure. I shall talk about how people think about tax as much as about how accountants evaluate tax. Business men tend in the main to be more creative than accountants and they tend to dwell less on detail. It is that degree of creativity that makes the amendment interesting and it is the reason why I commend it so strongly. What the amendment proposes would create a feeling of the worth of being involved and of using money to gain more money and to grow on behalf of the nation, as well as on behalf of the people we employ. It reflects an attitude of mind—one that is often not understood by Government Members. Many in business get the impression that Labour Members think that business men are there to make profit and that that undertaking is in some way dubious—or even, some of the worst sort of that thinking suggests, crooked. In fact, many business men are there to create, to build and to grow, and that very objective is the driving force that creates jobs in this country. Therein lies the importance of the amendment: it would encourage creativity, which in turn encourages jobs. That is a vital part of the process in which we need to be engaged right now if we are take advantage of the green shoots that will appear, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) and my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) have said. When those green shoots appear, we need to be in a position to exploit them to the advantage of our nation. High taxation in any form does not help us to do that. Another point touched on by my right hon. Friend is the need to attract to this country businesses and big companies from other nations. I am amazed by the arguments advanced by some Government Members, who seem to think that our real opponents are Germany and France—that those countries should be our comparators and that, as long as we are lined up relatively sensibly with them, the world is okay. Let me tell Ministers that the world is changing dramatically and the G7 may not always be in pole position. In fact, I believe that the present elements of the G7 will not be in pole position for very much longer, because I perceive a massive, dynamic change in the world, which the present recession will only enhance. The Government need to understand that, but I see no understanding among them of that trend. Let me explain part of the reason I think that. I have just returned from a Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform trip to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and I went to Dubai. Some might say that Dubai is having a pretty bad time, and indeed it is, because it is not a major oil-producing part of the world, but it is a hub for a massive region. People there said to me time and again, "We used to look to the west; we now look to the east." Business man after business man in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates told me that. Of course, many of them were not nationals of those countries. They were European business men who decided to settle their businesses in that part of the world because of the potential that it provided. That is what we are competing against. It is against that background that this debate is so important. It is about ensuring the recharging of Britain's natural entrepreneurial spirit. That creativity is vital, and lower tax rates inspire that creativity. I beg the Government to recognise the connection in the amendment, even at this late stage. I was rather surprised at the hon. Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson), whom I admire enormously. He is one of the few members of the Labour party with real business experience. I was particularly surprised that, although he recognised that we created the lowest corporate rates of taxation in the G7, he did not seem to think that that was too important. That was a very confusing argument. I recognise the points made about the overall tax basis, but he did not see the creative, imaginative elements of the proposal, as I would expect a business man to do. That surprised me in a business man of his stature.