My Lords, I feel mounting concern as a result of what I said in Committee about this clause in a discussion on the financial assistance Act. What we have just heard makes my original anxiety even greater. I asked the Minister at that time whether he would give an opinion as to the application of the Act to this clause. I think the situation has got even worse. Where there is in effect a deal between a company and the Inland Revenue to give somebody a tax advantage, or at least a complicit arrangement whereby they co-operate for it, surely there is a breach of the laws that were brought in at the time of the Guinness and Blue Arrow fraud cases and that prohibit any company from giving financial assistance to any employees for the purchase of its own shares. This seems to me to be exactly what is occurring here. It is highly dangerous. We cannot have a scheme that criminalises companies and their employees accidentally and at the same time.
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