Finance Bill

Once again, Conservative Members, and indeed the Minister, want to brush over this inconvenient part of their so-called plan. They clearly made a bad decision in 2010. The purpose of the new clause is to show that. If the reduction in the annual investment allowance was offset by the reduction in corporation tax, as the Minister argues, why did they revisit the decision and increase the allowance again? That would not have been necessary if their only plan for supporting business up and down the country, which was to reduce corporation tax, had been successful. We supported that plan, but it was not enough on its own to offset the damaging uncertainty created by slashing the annual investment allowance from £100,000 to £25,000 in one fell swoop.