Treasury and Work and Pensions

First, I think that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the Companies Act 1985. I am referring to Finance Acts. Secondly, the sympathy of us all goes out to those who have suffered under Farepak—I am sure that he would agree that this is not a party political point—but the Government have been in place for nine years, so if there is a fault with the legislation, which I am not necessarily saying that there is, those remarks should be directed to his own Front Bench. I was trying to make the point that Finance Bills have grown in length substantially. Between 2000 and 2005, they were 481 pages long. The third assessment of complexity involves looking at the World Economic Forum, which produces a rating on these matters. Looking at the UK’s global competitiveness on tax complexity, in 2004-05—not that long ago—it was 48th, but within a year it had moved to 67th. Again, there is an element of too much complexity. It is worth noting that the survey undertaken by the tax reform commission, which was commissioned by my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor, showed that 60 per cent. of businesses are increasing spending on tax planning at the moment. Some 78 per cent. said that the level of tax complexity has increased in the past five years. There is a further issue with complexity. There are obviously the compliance costs and so on. The major concern is unpredictability and instability. When we look at the developing world and think about how it can develop further, most people consider issues such as property rights, certainty within the taxation system and so on. We do not face anything like the problems that exist in some developing world countries, but the economic point remains the same. It is bad for an economy to have an arbitrary, unpredictable taxation system. Business needs confidence to invest and the taxation system can undermine that confidence. Various elements make up the concerns with regard to unpredictability. First, there is the extent of the changes, to which I referred earlier. When we have large Finance Bills and there are substantial changes to taxation, year on year, that causes concern. There is also concern about the sheer level of complexity. It is difficult for businesses, even when advised by highly skilled advisers, to know what their tax liabilities are. There is also a concern about extra powers for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. I am thinking in particular of a recent consultation document about additional powers. PricewaterhouseCoopers, for example, has made representations to the Treasury to say that it recognises the advantages of harmonising and modernising the powers of HMRC. However, it says that while harmonisation and modernisation are one thing,"““taking the most extreme of the powers of the two former Departments””—" by which it means the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise—"““to create a set of powers that are far more extensive than either of the predecessor sets of powers, is something quite different and which needs to be properly justified””." There is no doubt from the tone of the submission made by PWC that it is sceptical about that. There is also a concern—again, I can see it in documentation from PWC—about too much discretion for HMRC. It raises the concern that the Revenue was often able to manage legislation by means of such devices as frequently asked questions. That creates difficulty for business. There is no doubt that there is increasing evidence that the relationship between businesses and HMRC is deteriorating. I have no doubt that tax evasion must be tackled—the Government are right to try to do so—but the balance must be right. I am worried that the increased complexity that is being weighed on business is having a serious impact on it, partly due to a lack of certainty. Support for the view that businesses lack certainty in the tax system comes from today’s CBI survey, which shows that 23 per cent. of the business people who responded said that the way in which their company’s tax returns had been treated had declined since the creation of HMRC. Something is going wrong with the relationship between businesses and HMRC when that is happening. The Queen’s Speech contained no measures to address such concerns. It is by no means inevitable that tax complexity should be weighed on tax complexity, although that appears to be the direction in which we are going. We should consider examples from overseas, such as from the Republic of Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands, where there has been simplification. Those countries have looked at abolishing reliefs and lowering the actual rate. The Government could have considered procedural points and set out their conclusions in the Queen’s Speech. The tax reform commission that my party set up examined ways in which there could be pre-Budget consultation on tax measures. It also considered the establishment of an office of tax simplification and the possibility of Finance Bills being examined by a Joint Committee to make use of some of the expertise of the House of Lords. I do not particularly advocate the last proposal because it would give rise to constitutional concerns, but we should use greater expertise to try to tackle the situation, because complexity and uncertainty are creating a great deal of worries. I have mentioned before, including during the consideration of last Session’s Finance Bill, the impact on our tax law of decisions taken by the European Union and, specifically, the judgments of the European Court of Justice. Last week, the ECJ pulled back on excise duties. There was a great deal of publicity about the rate of excise duty that should be charged when a person from the UK ordered alcohol or cigarettes from Latvia using the internet. Against the advice of the advocates-general, the ECJ concluded that the UK rate should apply in that case. Despite the easy temptation to make remarks about cheap booze in the run-up to Christmas, I was greatly relieved that such a judgment was reached. Concerns have arisen about occasions on which the ECJ has waded into areas in such a way as to attack the whole integrity of the UK taxation system, especially with regard to the way in which corporation tax group relief has worked. In many respects, the ECJ is more a political body than a judicial body. Many of its judgments seem to reflect its ultimate political objective of ever closer union, as is seen from its decisions on taxation and other matters. The ECJ is also political in that it seems to have an awareness of the political pressures in member states and thus treads carefully at times—perhaps last week’s decision on excise duties was an example of that. I am worried that there is a two-stage process. The ECJ makes it difficult for any member state to raise revenue in the way in which it would like. It is not a huge jump to go from that on to the next step of suggesting that that could be dealt with through greater harmonisation and a common tax base, as I believe Mr. László Kovács will propose at a meeting of Finance Ministers tomorrow. I am worried that the integrity of the system is being attacked at the first level and that the solution produced at the second level is essentially one of European Union tax law. That would be wrong for a number of reasons. It would further weaken any competitive advantage that we have in the UK and it would take taxation out of the democratic forum in such a way that our electorate would no longer have a say. I know that the Financial Secretary has heard me make similar speeches before, but I say again that I am worried that the ECJ is, to some extent, a political body so that I can increase political awareness of my concerns. I hope that the House will send out the message that it does not like our taxation system being attacked by judgments of the European Court of Justice, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to make that point again. Productivity is a hugely important issue in this country. We need to address the situation because recent years’ productivity growth figures have not been good. The taxation system is one element of the problem, because the competitive advantages that this country built up throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s have gradually been diminished. There is no doubt that economic policies have an effect for a long time after they have been implemented. When the Chancellor was boasting about unemployment figures to my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone), I was struck that he resorted to saying that his achievements on unemployment tended to have taken place between May and October 1997. I cannot help thinking that the previous Government might have had something to do with that success, although I hope that I am not making a claim that is too hard to back up. Many economic decisions have long-lasting effects, although they are not always immediate. Long-term harm is being done to our country through our business tax system and we are no longer as competitive as we were. If we do not address the situation in this Session or soon, we will face problems.