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(Clauses 1, 4, 8, 189 and 209, Schedules 1, 23 and 33, and certain new Clauses and new Schedules relating to value added tax)

I remind hon. Members that I am an adviser to an industrial company and a small investment management business. I am not a tax adviser, so I feel able to participate in this debate. I was interested in the Opposition amendment and it turns out to be rather disappointing, for a number of reasons. It asks the Government to produce a report"““on how the additional revenue…would be invested to create new jobs and tackle unemployment.””" As phrased, it does not actually ask for a report on how a bank payroll tax would work, although that is perhaps what Labour Members wanted, too. Interestingly, the Opposition have shifted from wanting a bank bonus tax—a tax originally described as a ““one-off”” and clearly aimed at very high earners in certain kinds of investment bank, which everybody loves to hate at the moment—to wanting in this amendment a general bank payroll tax. I ask them to think about what that means, because most of the people on the payrolls of our leading large banks are, of course, modestly remunerated. This payroll tax would give a further incentive to bank directors and managers to try to get rid of personnel they are employing, because if we tax something, we clearly do not like it. The Opposition say that they do not like payroll, so they are trying to tax payroll.