Finance Bill

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s extremely helpful intervention. Having been in small business myself, I accept that £1,000 is significant to such businesses. Given that many of us wish to encourage small business to grow, it surprises me that this whole clause stand part debate seems to have been a subsection (1) stand part debate. No reference has been made to subsection (2) and the following subsections in terms of marginal reliefs. They relate to the transitional provisions in terms of corporation tax for those companies whose profits are between £300,000 and £1.5 million per annum. They are the lower and upper profit limits for what one might call the transitional regime for the rate of corporation tax. That should benefit what one might call larger small business. I use that term rather than medium-sized business because a business may well grow to reach the level of profitability and therefore the tax bracket covering companies with profits between £300,000 and £1.5 million without crossing the threshold in terms of the number of employees that would result in its being a medium-sized business. I also note that in response to the intervention by my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary, the hon. Member for Fareham did not say what he thought the rate should be. His response, broadly—I paraphrase, but he will correct me if I have it wrong—was, ““We’re not in government now. We’ll look at it when we are in government in 2010.”” That was certainly the year he cited. However, it surprises me that, even though he feels so strongly about subsection (1), which deals with the 20 per cent. rate instead of the zero rate for small companies, he has not tabled an amendment. If he did table one, he will have to forgive me for saying that, but I have not seen it listed—perhaps it was not selected. If the hon. Gentleman speaks again in this debate, will he say whether he proposes to vote against clause 3 given that, although it contains a provision that he regards as somewhat negative in subsection (1), it later sets out a measure that I suspect he regards as positive?