New Clause 5 - Proceedings under Financial Servicesand Markets Act 2000
Social Security Contributions
12:30 pm
Mr Howard Flight (Arundel and South Downs, Conservative)
The hon. Gentleman is correct in principle, although I, like the Minister, assume that most companies that qualify will take up the option, so it will be the majority rather than the minority. Logically, a company would take up the option only if it were reasonably optimistic about its prospects. If it was pessimistic and thought that profits would decline and that its NIC liability on options would be nothing because the company would not be worth anything, it would be mad to take up the option. The chance of misleading positive signals is much less than the chance of misleading negative signals.