In view of the late hour, I shall not detain the House for long. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] That may be the most support that I get on the issue.

Lease finance is a complex area. My research has revealed the interesting fact that one of the people who has funded the Labour Front Bench research trust was involved in lease finance some years back. Apparently, that donator to Labour's secret fund sold his leasing business in 1987 and two years later it collapsed and went bankrupt. That shows the complexity of leasing finance and the problems of it.

The details of leasing finance were discussed in Committee on 20 February. I do not propose to go into such detail tonight. The leasing industry is concerned that it may have been misunderstood and perhaps seen as an easy way of raising money. It does not accept that it was involved in tax avoidance.

I am bound to say that the Inland Revenue is one of the organisations that has recently benefited from lease finance—for the staff college. It would seem strange if the Inland Revenue were involved in tax avoidance in financing its staff college. On the basis that it has not been seeking to avoid tax, I commend the amendments to my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary.

The leasing industry believes that it passes on any tax benefits to its customers because of the way in which it is structured. It finds it difficult to understand the way that the Treasury and Inland Revenue seem to want to tax it. One argument is that the Inland Revenue and the Treasury are seeking merely to reconcile accounting treatment with tax treatment. It is difficult to get perfection in that area because of the way in which lease finance operates and, therefore, one must question whether the changes will achieve an improvement, in terms of getting accounting treatment and tax treatment closer.

Finally, we must consider the important issue of inward investment and jobs. Commitments have been made to the leasing industry, through finance legislation, which it has passed on to foreign investors into the United Kingdom. While everyone knows that tax treatments can change, it is normal practice not to change them before a Budget, especially when no prior announcement has been made. In this area, the tax treatment can affect inward investment decisions and commitments entered into involving inward investment prior to the Budget. Surely that precedent should not be made. Surely my right hon. Friend should recognise that that was not what was desired when the changes were proposed and surely that is a circumstance that should not happen in the future.

I invite my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to give a commitment that those changes will be subjected to much greater scrutiny and that such changes and precedents, which are dangerous, will not occur. We want to maximise inward investment. It is important for the Government to continue to give inward investors strong encouragement. We have record inward investment into this country and we should not change—even to the small extent that we are discussing—taxation practice in any way that would give inward investors the message that they are not welcome or that the tax treatment might change.

I hope that we will hear strong confirmation from my right hon. Friend that the Government will not allow such things to happen again in a way that might raise question marks in the minds of those involved in inward investment and the leasing industry. After all, the leasing industry is significant and important, it is supported by a number of Government Departments and it encourages inward investment into the United Kingdom.