Finance Bill

Indeed. On energy-saving houses, it is a little rich—to quote the phrase again—of Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition to be critical of the provision relating to zero-carbon homes simply on the grounds that there are not any, or that there are very few. The point was made earlier that when there was a reduction in the rates of duty on unleaded petrol to persuade people to go down that route, we heard comments that only a handful of garages in particular areas sold unleaded petrol. But as a result of measures in the then Finance Bill, people were persuaded to change their habits. They moved to driving vehicles with unleaded fuel. I hope that the relief for new zero-carbon homes will persuade people that it is right to move towards having zero-carbon homes. Any assistance in that regard has to be positive. Criticism was made about domestic microgeneration. Given that the Leader of the Opposition has or had a wind turbine—[Interruption.] I understand that it has been removed. That is a great pity. That would otherwise have been a good example. I do not want to detain the House by rehashing the arguments and discussions about managed service companies. We need to make sure—the Finance Bill moves in the right direction—that there is fairness and that we do not have a situation in which somebody decides to adopt a particular corporate or non-corporate structure purely for a tax advantage rather than because it suits their business. I am sure that most businesses in that situation would not dream of using the tax system for pecuniary advantage, but the provisions make sure that that is so. I hope and expect that in Committee some of the corners will get knocked off and things will move forward. I do not want to detain the House by exploring what has already been debated in a good and positive fashion this afternoon. I hope that a lot of the points that have been made by me and other right hon. and hon. Members will be taken on board by the Minister when looking at the issues. I want to close with a plea about the regional impact—something that was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson). With my wider Staffordshire hat on as chair of the taskforce, as well as my constituency hat on as the Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent, South, I think that we need to make sure that when the Finance Bill and wider provisions—designed to help, guide and promote different industries—are brought in, stronger direction is given to regional development agencies to make sure that there is a much greater focus on the types of business that they are promoting in different areas. A number of potential large employers wished to come to Stoke-on-Trent, but, unfortunately, the office space in the city was not sufficiently large to accommodate them. So, a large number of extremely well-paid, high-skilled jobs were not able to come into the city. That was a terrible loss for an area such as Stoke-on-Trent, which has fantastic people who are able to learn specialist, complicated and creative skills. The lack of office space meant that we did not get those jobs. However, the regional development agency had been in place for some time and did not hesitate to ensure that distribution sheds were built. It pushed that aspect. It is just a pity that the opportunity was not taken some years back to make sure that some large office space was built quickly. I make a plea to the Minister to turn his eye in that direction. All in all, it is a good Bill. As has been mentioned, it could perhaps go a little further in some areas. I do not take the point that the Liberal Democrats made about its being an over-burdensome, over-complicated Bill—particularly given that they then contradicted that point by saying that the Bill could do with more clauses relating to aircraft flying over rural areas of their constituencies. I certainly commend the Bill and I hope that it will receive support from both sides of the House.