Finance (No. 3) Bill

Lord Northbrook Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbrook]

My Lords, it is interesting how the noble Lord, Lord Myners, praised Alistair Darling in his opening speech but not the previous Chancellor’s budget deficit expansion. I should like to remind the House that in an interview in August last year, he reflected that the Labour Government had abandoned fiscal responsibility; that Gordon Brown “grew to forget” the golden rule; that Labour ran large deficits in the middle part of the previous decade when the economy was clearly running at full capacity; that the party needed to come clean on what cuts it would make; and that it needed to prove once again that it is a credible party of economic management. The noble Lord criticised the current shadow Chancellor. He said:

“I don't agree with Ed Balls. I do think the Labour party has to wrestle with the fact that it tends to leave office with large deficits. And I think its licence to govern is … weakened in the future—if it could not produce credible arguments … that it is capable of sound economic management through the cycle”.

The country is still recovering from the debt binge.

Once again, we are assembled here to debate the Finance (No. 3) Bill, the majority of which I support. We are also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market, and his committee for their excellent report, which again generally speaks favourably of the Finance (No. 3) Bill. His report applauds the introduction of a new approach to tax policy-making by the coalition Government with the aim of bringing about a clearer, more stable and more predictable tax system. This approach seeks to produce better tax legislation and more effective scrutiny of tax changes. I agree with the report’s conclusion that this has produced a Bill, the content of which has generally reflected early and fuller consideration than in the past. The report quotes two good examples of this with which I fully concur—first, corporation tax reform and, secondly, the area of changes to pensions tax relief.

However, the report rightly is critical of two other areas where this new approach has not been adopted. There is disguised remuneration. The new provisions against tax avoidance in this area take up no fewer than 60 pages of new legislation. Surely this would not have been necessary had there been more consultation beforehand. Likewise came the change to the oil and gas tax regime by way of the supplementary charge. No consultation had been made with either industry. It was not until there was a great deal of criticism that exploration in these areas would be seriously affected that at the last minute the announcement was made of an extension to the ring-fence expenditure supplement, which has persuaded companies like Statoil to resume its drilling projects.

Before moving to considering the Finance (No. 3) Bill as a whole, I wish to congratulate the Chancellor on his vigorous approach in tackling the appalling legacy of the Budget deficit left to us by the Labour Government. This had to be the first economic priority after the election. His deficit reduction policies have been approved by a whole range of organisations, including the IMF, the European Commission, the OECD, the Fitch rating agency and Timothy Geithner, the US Treasury Secretary.

Looking at the Finance (No. 3) Bill in more detail, first, I shall focus on help for businesses. I welcome the reduction in corporation tax for large companies from April this year, the reforms to the foreign profits legislation, the announcement of new enterprise zones and the proposed low rate of corporation tax for offshore finance companies. That will all be good news for larger companies. Moreover, the Chancellor has dealt a very generous hand to VCTs and EIS investors, increasing the tax relief and the amount of investment while rightly warning against abuse of the rules. The slight improvement in the capital allowance regime for short-term assets is good news. Those positive aspects of the Budget far outweigh the negative ones for a few sectors of the economy. Terry Scuoler chief executive of the EEF, the manufacturers’ association, while praising the Budget in the main, said that,

“the significant rise in energy bills threatened by the Carbon Price Floor is unwelcome”.

For smaller unincorporated businesses, the news on the tax front is more mixed. They should benefit from easier planning laws. They should also be helped by the decision to support innovation and manufacturing, with an additional £100 million this year for new science facilities and an increase in the SME rate of research and development tax credit over the next few years. However, two areas are definitely not to their advantage. The 50p income tax rate needs to be reduced as soon as possible, and the Equalities Act could well cause problems in taking on staff.

Regulation is also a major area of difficulty which I shall examine in more detail. For those not familiar with it, a new Cabinet sub-committee called the Reducing Regulation Committee was established after the coalition came to power. The committee has to review the quality and robustness of regulatory proposals. Astonishingly, its second report, which covers the period between September and December 2010, concludes that more than 40 per cent of the regulatory proposals that it considered were not fit for purpose. The main failing was a failure to produce cost-benefit analyses of proposals. This all might sound rather esoteric but is very important. If regulations are being spewed out that do not make sense, it is a big hindrance, especially to smaller businesses which do not have the back-office ability to cope with them all.

Let me give another example of difficulties for a smaller business. A friend of mine who is involved in a growing smaller company has been given the opportunity to pay his tax in instalments. However, something has recently gone wrong with the Revenue’s computer system which means that he has been asked to pay all his tax at once. He rang up the local Revenue office, which is a nightmare process, and took more than an hour to get through to anyone sensible. He was then told that this was an administrative mistake and that he need not worry. I fear that this may have happened to a lot of small businesses. Has the Minister come across any other cases in this area?

Overall, I welcome the Finance (No. 3) Bill 2011. The Chancellor has a difficult hand to play and progress may appear to be uneven at times. But his message is clear: Britain is open for business and it has produced major incentives to companies and individuals to create wealth, which I believe is the right approach for the economy.

[Lord Myners]

The noble Lord listed a number of organisations which endorsed the Chancellor’s strategy. Can he remind the House whether any of those organisations were successful in forecasting the crisis that hit us in 2007, including the credit rating agencies to which he referred?

[Lord Northbrook]

I would have to refer back to the noble Lord on those matters.