I do not think that this has to be universal, but there would be disadvantages for the UK if we were the only country to do it. There is a sense that UK companies would be criticised for failing to pay very much tax in jurisdictions where they did not have a lot of activities but had a lot of sales. This comes back to the point about educating the public about how corporation tax works. I think it would be an awful lot easier if there were just a few examples of other countries doing this. I do not think it needs to involve every other country, but if, for example, Germany, France and Italy had the same type of system, every time a UK company was criticised we could say, “What about that French company? What about that Italian company? The same principles apply to them.”
We do not have to move at the pace of the slowest, but if we adopt an isolated position on this, there would be a reputational risk for UK businesses. We do not need to run that risk, particularly as good progress is being made, and I urge the House not to accept this amendment. Instead, I hope that we will be able to implement a measure over the next few months.