Finance Bill

I thank the Financial Secretary for his explanation of the circumstances that lie behind the new clause. It elaborates on the letter that he sent to my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs. Villiers) and other members of the Committee last week. In the letter, the Financial Secretary said that the estimated cost approached £1 billion, but in his remarks he said that it was £240 million. I appreciate that the Treasury likes to round things up from time to time, but that appeared to be a large rounding up. Will he be a little clearer about the basis of both the figure in his letter and the cost that he cited in his speech? My broader concern is that the new clause is drafted widely, as the Financial Secretary acknowledged. We held several debates in Committee about the breadth of anti-avoidance legislation. We had a long debate about the way in which broadly framed legislation was subsequently narrowed through guidance. I was therefore disappointed, given the circumstances that gave rise to the new clause, that the provision was not more tightly drawn to attack the specific abuses that he highlighted of group companies, the use of dividends and so on as a means of generating management expenses. I wonder why he feels the need to phrase the new clause so widely. Are not we in danger of creating uncertainty among taxpayers and their advisers through the breadth of the provision? Cannot we have a more specific provision to tackle the abuse that he mentioned?