The hon. Gentleman makes a very interesting point, which relates to what the Government say. They believe in tax competition, as do I, but we must avoid unnecessary tax or regulatory arbitrage not just within the UK but between the UK and other countries. There is a balance to be struck between proper tax competition, which is legitimate and fair and proper to stimulate growth, and unnecessary changes simply to get a quick short-term fix in terms of the arbitrage, which would be unhelpful. That highlights the analogy with price fixing that the hon. Gentleman drew, and he is right to be conscious of that.
We rehearsed the arguments about fuel duty at some length in our debate on the Supply day motion a few weeks ago, so I do not intend to go into that in considerable detail, but I will go into it in some detail.
Scotland Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Stewart Hosie
(Scottish National Party)
in the House of Commons on Monday, 14 March 2011.
It occurred during Debate on bills
and
Committee of the Whole House (HC) on Scotland Bill.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
525 c52 
Session
2010-12
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Subjects
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Timestamp
2023-12-15 15:20:29 +0000
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