My hon. Friend anticipates my next point. We live in a global world. The richer people are, the more footloose they can be, and the better the tax and legal advice they can get. Most of them want to obey the law in the country they choose to live in and the countries they choose to operate in—they usually operate in several countries not just one, which creates genuine definitional problems about where they are truly resident and where is their main centre—and they will compare all the time, on good advice, the different regimes available. It is quite obvious that in the EU there is a lot of jealousy of London and the wider UK’s success in attracting talent and investment from around the world. As my hon. Friend says, regimes are being created in to tempt people away by giving them a better deal in other European countries.
I was about to draw the attention of the House to hugely important debates about to be undertaken in both the Senate and the House of Representatives in the United States of America. New York and other great centres are already very attractive magnets for rich people and large-scale investors. They are suggesting that they might take their top rate of tax down from
39.6% to 35%, simplify their income tax brackets from seven to just three, and take their corporation tax rate down from a very high headline 35% to an effective rather lower rate of 20% or even lower, because they are very serious about becoming tax competitive again. They will be a lure, just as surely as some European countries on the continent are trying to be more of a lure.
The Opposition would be well advised to understand how global the world is, how dynamic it is, and how, to maximise tax revenue, there is a need to set ways of taxing and rates of taxation that enable people to stay and pay.