It is a great pity that my hon. Friends did not read my remarks in Committee; they would have found that their arguments were adequately dealt with. We are not anti-leasing; we are in favour of investment in this country. We want to encourage inward investment by having what we believe to be the best tax regime in Europe, if not the world. We certainly do not want those investments to be burdened by the social chapter.

We have sought to act against the leases because they are contrived tax avoidance arrangements solely to the benefit of banks, effectively, although the lessee gains something. The lessees knew what they were signing up to: their agreements clearly stated that if there were changes in the tax regime they would have to bear the costs.

The measure represents a saving to the taxpayer of £150 million, against a total of investment affected of about £½ billion, and I believe that I am right in saying that total leased investment represents about £20 billion, so it could not be said to be a show-stopper for the United Kingdom.

The legislation is not retrospective: it is prospective in that it taxes the income on such arrangements into the future. We are not going backwards in time. For those reasons, I invite my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Shaw) to withdraw the amendment.