Corporation Tax Bill

It is pleasure to speak on Third Reading. This is very nearly the end of the process—we have another Bill to discuss this afternoon—but it is a good opportunity for us to thank those who have been involved in it over the past 14 years. As the Minister said, it all began in 1996 when my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, set up the tax law rewrite project. He went on to Chair the Joint Committee on Tax Law Rewrite Bills. Those are two of the many contributions—both past and future—that he will have made to public life. By the time a tax Bill reaches its Third Reading, an Opposition Front Bencher has usually devoted what feels like weeks of their life to addressing the matter. The tax law rewrite project process is unusual, in that an Opposition Front Bencher's involvement tends to be on Second Reading and Third Reading. The Minister has a slightly greater role as a member of the Committee, but I am sure that he would be the first to accept that it is not quite as demanding upon his time as a Finance Bill would normally be. None the less, for many people this has been the most enormous project, and one should pay tribute to those who have been involved in it: the independent steering committee, which is chaired by Lord Newton and, as the Minister said, was previously chaired by Lord Howe of Aberavon, who has had a long-term interest in the making of tax law; Members of both Houses who have been part of the Joint Committee; members of the judiciary, and of the legal and accounting professions; and business and consumer groups. I particularly wish to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) for his service as Chair of the Joint Committee. In its report, which I read through, he acknowledged that he was new to the process, but he handled the proceedings with the skill that one would expect of him. I also wish to thank the consultative committee, which consisted of members of the main tax and business representative bodies, and the many consultees involved in the process, both in the professional organisations and businesses, and in Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. They responded to the project by devoting a great deal of their time to it, without any compensation as such, and they played an important role in developing this law. Of course I also wish to thank the tax law rewrite project team for all its efforts over many years in developing this legislation. The first bit of legislation was the Capital Allowances Act 2001. It was followed by three Acts relating to income tax: the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003, ITEPA; the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005, ITTOIA; and the more simply-named Income Tax Act 2007. In this context, one should also mention the Income Tax (Pay As You Earn) Regulations 2003. The legislation on corporation tax is: the Corporation Tax Act 2009, this Bill and the Taxation (International and Other Provisions) Bill, which we will debate subsequently. I have set out my thanks to all those involved in the process; the level of professionalism has been very high. I now wish to raise a query that the Minister will anticipate, and it is not, in any way, meant to take away from anything done by those who have been involved in the process. Does the process go far enough? It has required a great deal of expertise, it has placed great demands upon the consultees and it has cost £37 million, which is not an insignificant sum. It is worth citing the remarks made by John Whiting, the tax policy director of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, with whom those of us who have anything to do with tax tend to be familiar. He said:""The Rewrite has done a good job but our concern has always been that it has not really been the right job. The new law is certainly clearer but it would have been better to put the effort into simplifying the system rather than just the wording."" He went on to say that""the Institute believes that bringing the Rewrite to a close is correct, as we have previously said. We would hope that more effort can now be put into simplifying the tax system."" We fully endorse those remarks. The importance of the project has not just been about the rewriting of the legislation and the provision of greater clarity in the wording—that is important; we can build upon a lot of the work that has been done, because we can use some of the structures that exist. For example, the Joint Committee involves parliamentarians making use of outside expertise to scrutinise technical legislation with perhaps more thoroughness than we normally achieve through the Finance Bill process. I have had the honour of being part of that process for the past four years, but I wonder whether, in this complicated area of tax law, a committee that can inquire more than debate and that has access to expert advice is able to provide greater scrutiny than the traditional parliamentary process.