Schedule 30 - First-year allowances for expenditure on environmentally beneficial plant or machinery
Finance Bill
6:30 pm
Mr Howard Flight (Arundel and South Downs, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 135, in
schedule 30, page 360, leave out lines 26 to 28 and insert—
'(5) Where this section applies, the expenditure is apportioned under section 562(3) (apportionment where property sold with other property) subject to the limitations imposed by this section.'.
New section 45I of the Capital Allowances Act 2001 provides that the Treasury may by order provide that no allowance on environmentally beneficial plant or machinery may be made unless a relevant certificate of environmental benefit is in force. New section 45J is intended to provide an alternative method of apportioning expenditure to that provided in section 562(3) of the 2001 Act, where one or more of the components of a particular plant or machinery are of a description specified by Treasury order. However, the new section as drafted seems merely to limit the expenditure that can qualify for capital allowances on environmentally beneficial plant or machinery. The amendment therefore proposes that section 562(3) should continue to apply, subject to the limits imposed by new section 45J—in other words, that apportionment should be provided for. Without our amendment, expenditure on other items may not qualify for allowances. That is the Government's objective and I hope that the Economic Secretary will make a statement to that effect. The clause could have been drafted more clearly.