Finance Bill

I beg to move, To leave out from ““That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof: "this House declines to give a second reading to the Finance Bill because it fails to equip the UK to compete in the globalised world economy in the face of ever increasing competition from countries such as China and India, penalises small companies with higher tax rates and a more complicated tax system, hits freelance workers with more tax bureaucracy and uncertainty, involves yet further instability and U-turns on pensions policy and does nothing to tackle the UK’s worsening pensions crisis, gives HM Revenue and Customs intrusive and disproportionate new powers of investigation, misses the opportunity to provide effective mechanisms for tackling climate change, fails to reform the UK tax law after years of erosion of its competitiveness, and fails to reverse the massive increase in complexity and instability which the Chancellor has inflicted on the tax system of the UK." This Finance Bill might not be quite as long as last year’s—the Government have been able to squeeze it into a single volume—but that cannot make up for the massive increase in complexity and continuing instability that we have seen during the Chancellor’s 10 years in charge of our tax system. Recent reports from Grant Thornton and Ernst and Young highlight the erosion of our competitiveness that has been caused by the complexity of a tax code that has doubled in length during that decade. We believe that there is an urgent and pressing need for tax reform. If the Government shirk the challenge, there is a real risk of an outflow of jobs to other countries. The limited steps in the Bill towards simplification and reform do not meet that challenge, which is one of the key reasons why we decline to give it a Second Reading. Let me begin with clause 1. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) asked why our reasoned amendment did not cover the income tax changes announced in the Budget. As I said in an intervention, that is because they are not in the Bill. However, we remain concerned about the proposals that will be imposed next year, and my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) will deal with that matter in his winding-up speech.