City of London

There are two points. Clearly, we already have a tax of stamp duty on general share transactions. Many of the markets—the eurobond or eurodollar market in this country for example—came about simply because of American taxes. Does the hon. Gentleman not recognise that having a range of taxes, particularly on a regional rather than global basis, might see potentially risky transactions being moved to some of the more wild-west elements of the financial services world? Historically, going down that tax route has not tended to work.