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Finance (No. 3) Bill

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. She will know that the legislation passed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) in the last Parliament allowed salaries of more than £1 million to be open to scrutiny, which would address the issue she mentions. There is some merit in bringing this issue to the attention of the House, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington for doing so. He will know that there are some issues to do with his amendment delaying corporation tax cuts, but I am grateful that he has addressed the issue and I hope the Minister will respond in due course. Amendment 17 is about the enterprise investment scheme, which we support. In Committee, we asked the Minister whether he had state aid approval for the EIS and I would welcome an update on whether he has since made progress on that. I have some sympathy with amendment 51, tabled by the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce). On Second Reading and in the Committee of the whole House, we tabled amendments that mirrored his amendment in many ways, asking the Chancellor to produce before the end of September an assessment of the impact of taxation on ring-fenced profits, business investment and growth, including an assessment of the long-term sustainability of oil and gas exploration in the North sea. For the reasons mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran), the way that the proposal was brought forward contained elements of surprise for the industry. There was a lack of consultation and there have been consequences. The right hon. Member for Gordon and the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith) both mentioned Statoil and the great impact that the decision has had on that company's potential $10 billion—or £6.1 billion—investment in the North sea. It is important that the Economic Secretary has had discussions—some potentially very exciting and energetic—with oil companies on these matters as part of her initiation into her role in government. I hope that she will ensure that she reports back. I also hope that the Minister will accept amendment 51, or at least accept an amendment in principle for the future. Finally, although my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) is not present today because of other matters, I very much welcome his amendment 9, which is part of this group. We raised the issue of video games tax relief in debates on the Finance (No. 2) Bill. However, we need to look at the issue again in detail, if only because the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) said when in opposition:"““We are committed to a tax break along the lines of the video games tax credit. We have been calling for tax breaks for the video game industry for the last three years.””" He said that during the general election, on 13 April 2010. He is now the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, yet he has been sat on by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who said in his Budget statement last June:"““In the current climate, with the deficit the size…all those reductions in tax must be more than paid for by other changes to business taxation, so we will not go ahead with the poorly targeted tax relief for the video games industry.””—[Official Report, 22 June 2010; Vol. 512, c. 175.]" My hon. Friend's amendment 9 asks the Government to look again at the issue. I simply put on record the fact that, yet again, those in government said one thing during the election and something else afterwards. We need to encourage the video games industry so that we can compete on a global scale. In summary, there are some useful amendments in this group. I cannot accept everything that the hon. Member for Amber Valley said, but the other amendments before us have some merit. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.