Finance (No. 3) Bill

My hon. Friend makes an extremely prescient intervention, because the Chancellor, under pressure from the Opposition, had to cave in to a concession on corporation tax in the March Budget. The Government announced the bank levy last June, so we knew that they would be introducing this tax, yet the corporation tax cuts will clearly benefit the banks significantly. The Treasury claims that in the March Budget it offset the benefit that the banks will apparently get as a result of the reduction in corporation tax rates, but we will have to wait to see whether the slight increase in the bank levy—around £100 million—introduced in the Budget will be sufficient to offset the full corporation tax cuts that the banks will enjoy over the lifetime of this Parliament. I recall that the written answer to a question I tabled on the predicted benefits to the banks of the corporation tax reductions suggested that that would be about £100 million in year one, £200 million in year two, £300 million in year three, and so on, but that largely reflects the reductions in corporation tax rates. That is something of a moot point, because we contend that the design of the bank levy is insufficient. Today's debate should provide an opportunity to seek proper redress for the crisis and ensure that we put the banks on a fair tax basis, but that is not what the Government are seeking with this pathetically small bank levy proposal.