I want to ask the Government whether they will publish the Report of the Departmental Committee upon which this Clause is founded. It is of great interest to a British mining company to know what view the Government take about the handicaps, if I may use that word, put upon our companies in the way of taxation, particularly compared with the mining companies of other countries. I presume the Departmental Committee went into all that fully, and I think it would be in the public interest if we could see their report.

I think the Committee ought to realise that, even if Clause 18 had been amended as we wished to amend it, British companies still would be under a substantial handicap compared with those of the United States or Canada. Both Canadian and American companies enjoy what is generally known as a straight depletion allowance. They get a percentage of their profits, calculated I presume on the notional life of the mine, allowed completely tax free, and they get it every year. I can see some objections to that form of allowance, but none the less it is an advantage to other mining companies compared with ours.

Of course, there is a further general advantage enjoyed by United States and Canadian companies in the standard rates of tax obtaining in those countries, which are much lower than ours. Roughly speaking, they pay 8s. in the pound, whereas our companies will pay 11s. in the pound. In other words, in this very risky business they can keep almost half as much again of their winnings as our companies. That just happens because our level of taxation, as we were discussing earlier today, is much heavier than that in other countries. All this is important if we are to maintain our place in the world. We have to develop these overseas sources of raw material and of income.

I should like to draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that, even with the concessions in this Clause, British companies, mining and oil, still suffer a handicap, and it may well be that, if the dollar crisis develops with great seriousness, the Committee in future years will have to consider ways of equalising the burdens upon British companies with those sustained by foreign companies. In the United Kingdom we are not now in any position to work under handicaps compared with the companies of other countries, and I feel that we have not heard the end of this mining tax. I should be grateful if the Government could see their way to publish the Report of the Department Committee.