Clause 28 - Notices under sections 24 and 26
Finance Bill
5:00 pm
Philip Hammond (Shadow Chief Secretary To the Treasury, Treasury; Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
The right hon. Lady, who has knowledge of Belgium, expresses some reaction to that. I remember working occasionally in Belgium a decade or so ago when, it would be fair to say, the country was not characterised as a place that was radically reforming its legislation to make itself more flexible and dynamic. However, it is interesting that some of the countries that had developed somewhat rigidly structured regimes that were not business friendly have now realised that to compete they have to change their regimes and make themselves more attractive to business.
One trap that we sometimes fall into in this place is stereotyping. We have ideas about different countries and how responsive to business their regimes are, but the world can change quickly and we can find that countries that were traditionally regarded as business friendly have allowed themselves to lag behind—I name no names; Committee members will draw their own conclusions—while others that were traditionally regarded as not particularly business friendly have galvanised themselves, not for fun or to risk losing tax revenue that would otherwise have benefited their taxpayers, but because they have worked out that having a more business-friendly environment that encourages investment and inward business location leads in the medium term to more revenue rather than less and thus a greater ability to provide the good quality public services that people in all countries, western, advanced or otherwise, want.