As we have heard, new clause 11 would require the Chancellor to review the impact of the new employee shareholder status on tax revenues and to publish a report setting out the impact on capital gains tax receipts, the estimated value of shares owned by employees with employee shareholder agreements and the number of such employees. Let me set out why I believe the new clause is unnecessary—a word the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) rightly predicted would come up, although, to be fair, we have had this debate before.
It is far too early for any detailed information on the employee shareholder status to be available. It has been available only since 1 September 2013, and we have not yet reached the deadline by which companies must submit their annual share scheme returns covering that period. Therefore, the Government do not yet have full information about the use of the new employment status. Once received, it will take time to process and analyse those data. The Government set out the potential impact on tax revenues in our tax information and impact note for the employee shareholder tax reliefs, and there are currently no additional data available that would allow that to be updated.
In addition, it is not necessary for a requirement to publish information to be placed in legislation. HMRC publishes a wide range of information about employee share schemes with no such statutory obligation. For example, only last week it published a wealth of data on the use of the tax advantaged employee share schemes during the year ending 2012-13.
We will consider whether that type of publication is appropriate for employee shareholder status or whether a different approach might better enable an evaluation of the employee shareholder status. As the Government have made clear, the employee shareholder scheme is different from the existing tax advantaged employee share schemes. It is primarily designed as an employment measure to encourage choice, growth and flexibility over the long term, rather than being focused on tax advantages. We will want to take those broader factors into account when evaluating the policy. However, given that employee shareholder legislation has been in operation for less than a year, it is simply too early to be finalising any details in that area.