Scotland Bill

The hon. Gentleman and I sat through some very long evidence sessions with any number of erudite professors of economics, none of whom seemed to agree with each other, but who nevertheless managed to find agreement on some pretty simple principles in respect of corporation tax, one of which was that if we lower it too far we will harm revenue, and if we raise it too high we will harm growth. Those very learned people disagreed because there are so many contingencies and uncertainties at any given point in time, and because the interlinking of the economies of various parts of not just the UK, but the European Union and beyond nowadays, makes it very difficult to pin matters down with any certainty, and therefore they become highly theoretical. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that—