I am glad that the hon. Gentleman is now nodding his agreement.
That is a way of moving money from high-tax jurisdictions to low-tax jurisdictions. Now, of course, these prices are not contested; they are not the result of supply and demand, but are administered just as much as prices in the Soviet Union were administered. Sometimes they are administered at suspiciously high levels, and as far as one can tell that device has been used by Starbucks and Facebook, which is why there is a big discrepancy.
I also want to call in aid our noble Friend Lord Mandelson, who said that we must deal with this issue at an international level. At the moment we have constant competition to see who can cut corporation tax the most, and an arbitraging day-ahead market that is undermining everybody’s tax base—we have seen that with the Irish Republic, and now new freedoms must be given to Northern Ireland. The situation is simply not sustainable, but agreeing international changes to the rules of the game takes time. We in this country must take more urgent, unilateral action, and I hope we can consider the way that trade marks, royalties and licences are being abused.
These arrangements are complex, and to tackle them we need Ministers with determination, the right legal framework, and enough experienced HMRC officials. It is disappointing that Ministers have reduced the number of experienced officials in HMRC who have the expertise to follow up such matters. The Minister kept saying that he has a good record of which he is confident, but the Financial Times says that the amount of tax that will be brought to the British Exchequer from measures taken by the previous Government is 10 times the amount that he will bring in. The truth is that this Government are defending the tax loopholes. We want to address them in order to abolish the bedroom tax, which is paid by the most vulnerable and by disabled people in this country. The Government are defending the hedge funds and the City loopholes because they want the money for the Tory coffers for their attempt to buy the next general election.
6.4 pm