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Finance (No. 3) Bill

Yes, I had forgotten that example. It is a good example of how unilateral action can raise the standard overall across Europe and globally. Another issue raised in our debate on the Tobin tax a number of years ago concerned whether it would be practical. Things have moved on since then and the system for undertaking financial transactions is highly automated and centralised. New systems have been put in place, and I refer Members to the study by the Institute of Development Studies that identified how the system now operates:"““The Continuous Linked Settlement Bank, launched in 2002, now settles more than half of all foreign exchange transactions, with the remainder processed through national real-time gross settlements systems.””" Now we have the systems in place, through advances in new technology, to monitor the process and thereby ensure that tax is collected easily and that avoidance can be prevented.