that is this government's resolve. under this government, britain has moved into the top ten of the most competitive places in the world to do business. but we have to do more, and here's how. first, exports. over the last decade, our share of world exports shrank, as germy's grew. we sold more to ireland than brazil, russia, india and china put together. that was the road to britain's economic irrelevance and we want to double our exports to one trillion pounds. so we are expanding u.k. export finance and setting out new plans to help smaller firms in new markets. exports abroad must be accompanied by investment at home. britain has a reputation as a remarkably open and welcoming place for investment. we must never allow protecis political system.

instead, we're actively seeking investment from overseas pension and sovereign wealth funds and working to develop london as an offshore market for the chinese currency. we also want investment from british pension funds and british infrastructure and are now working with a dozen of the large pension schemes specifically on that. we're the first british government to set out a national infrastructure plan the projects we're going to prioritize in the coming decade. the roads, clean energy and water, things we all need and have identified. i also believe this country must confront the lack of airport capacity in the southeast of england. we cannot cut ourselves off from the fastest-growing cities in the world and the transport secretary will set out government thinking later this summer. we want to look at the opportunities for increasing the role of private investment in

the road network, learning lessons from the water industry. and i confirmed today that network rail will extend to the northern hub, adding to the elect fiction of the rail route by upgrading the hope valley line between manchester and sheffield and improving the manchester to black pool and manchester to bradford lines. for years -- for years -- for years, transport investment in the north of england was neglected. not under this government. we are working with our great cities to devolve decision-making powers and striking a deal with manchester to support 1.2 billion pounds to support growth in infrastructure in that city. we will support tax increment financing to help local

authorities promote development and we will provide an extra 270 million pounds to the growing places fund. in all this, we are working with local areas to support their ideas for growing the private sector in parts of the country where the state has taken a larger and larger share of the economy. mr. of london is also a very effective champion for the city he runs so well. we will work with him on plans this summer to go on investing in london transport, lengthening commuter trains, extending the underground and exploring new river crossings in east london. so from the allocation made to the mayor through the growing places fund, he will be creating a new 70 million pound development fund to attract new business and new jobs. and the mayor has persuaded me

of the opportunities the new royal docks enterprise zone offers our largest city if we offer enhanced capital allowances there, so we will. mr. deputy speaker, 24 enterprise ends are now going ahead across england. chinese investment is pouring into the zone in liverpool. the zone in the west midlands is already expanding. i want other parts of the united kingdom to benefit from these policies and the chief secretary can confirm today that we will offer enhanced capital allowances for businesses starting up in the new scottish enterprise areas and there will be a new welsh enterprise so did while we look forward to the first enterprise zone in northern ireland. i also want to see investment in our world leading energy sector, including renewables. we've launched the green investment bank, open for business next month. we have introduced the carbon

price into our tax system to encourage investment and set the rate today. combined heat and power plants will not be liable to carbon price support rates on fuels used for heat. renewable energy will play a crucial part in britain's energy mix but i will always be alert to the costs we're asking to b. environmentally sustainable has to be fiscally sustainable as well. the carbon reduction commitment was established by the previous government. it is comebersome, bureaucratic and imposes unnecessary costs on business so we will seek major savings in the commitment for business and if those cannot be found, i will bring forward proposals this autumn to replace the revenues with an alternative environmental tax. gas is cheap and has much less car won than coal and will be the largest single source of electricity in the coming years. so we'll set out our new gas

generation strategy in the autumn to secure investment. i also want to ensure we extract the greatest possible amount of oil and gas from our reserves in the north sea. we are today introducing a major package of tax changes to achieve this. we will end the uncertainty over decommissioning tax relief that has hung over the industry for years by entering intontraual a also introducing new allowances, including a 3 billion pound new field allowance for large and deep fields to open up west of shetland, the last area that has been left to be developed. a huge boost for investment in the north sea. now, mr. deputy speaker, we shouldn't be shy about identifying our successful industries and reinforcing them. around one-fifth of the world's top 100 medicines

u.k. research. so we're backing our life sciences sector through creating the francis crick institutettin of the best places in the world for medicines. we have investment in major new university research facilities. we're the world' second largest aerospace industry and will establish a u.k. center for arrow dynamics to open next year to encourage innovation in aircraft design and commercialize new ideas. today we also set this industrial ambition that, we turn britain into europe's technology center. we will start with digital content. the film tax credit protected in our spending review helps generate over a billion pounds of film production investment in the u.k. last year alone. today i am announcing our intention to use similar schemes for the video games, animation and high-end tv production

industries. not only will this help stop premium british tv programs being made abroad, it will attract top international investors like disney and hbo to make more of their premium shows in the u.k. it will support brilliant video games and animation industries too, because mr. deputy speaker, it is the determined policy of this government that we keep wallace and grommett exactly where they are. >> order, order! order, order! i would have thought that the government side would want to hear more from the chancellor. chancellor of the exchequer. >> mr. deputy speaker, to be europe's technology center, we also need to have the best

technology infrastructure. two years ago britain had some of the slowest broadband speeds in europe. today our plans will deliver some of the fastest with 90% of the population having access to super fast broadband and improved mobile phone coverage for rural areas and along key roads across the u.k. but we should not be complacent by saying it's enough to be the best in europe when countries like korea and singapore do even better. so today we're funding urld fast broadband and wi-fi in ten of the u.k.'s largest cities. belfast, birmingham, bradford, bristol, leads, manchester, newcastle and london. now, my honorable friend from brighton kempton asked me to help small cities too, i agreed. 50 million pounds will be available for smaller cities too. and the fastest digital speeds in the world available in our cities with the most connected countryside in europe, the most

created digital content everywhere, that is what a modern industrial policy looks like. and the business secretary and i have asked michael hesseltine to review how government spending departments and other bodies can work better with the private sector on economic development. from liverpool to canary wolf, michael knows how it's done. and of course these projects succeeded -- these projects succeeded because they were not killed off by the planning system. you can't earn your future if you can't get planning permission. and global businesses have diverted specific investments that would have created hundreds of jobs in some of the most deprived communities in britain to countries like germany and the netherlands because they can't get planning permission here. that is unacceptable. next week the community secretary and the planning minister will publish the

results of our overhaul of planning regulation. we're replacing 1,000 pages of guidance with just 50 pages. we're introducing a presumption in favor of sustainable development, while protecting our most precious environments. the new policy comes into effect when the national planning policy framework is published next tuesday. this is the biggest reduction in business red tape ever undertaken. as a country, we also want to make the most of the olympic and paralympic games. some of the biggest events will be on a sunday when millions of visitors come to britain to see them. we don't want to hang up a closed for business sign, so we will introduce legislation limited to relaxing the sunday trading laws for eight sundays only, starting on july the 22nd. mr. deputy speaker, earning our way in the world means giving young people the skills to

compete. and in time, my friend, the education secretary of school reforms will do more to improve the long-term economic performance of our country than any budget measure ever will. but we've got to help the young adults who have already been let down by the school system. we're offering a record number of apprenticeships and our youth contract comes into force next month. i can tell the house we are also exploring the idea of enterprise loans. young people get a loan to go to university or college. now we want to help them get a loan to start their own business. we're also looking to see whether we can make public sector pay more responsive to local pay rates. it is something, as we just heard, the last government introduced into the court service. london waiting already exists across the public sector. indeed the opposition have proposed the interesting idea of regional benefit rates.

so we should see what we can do to make our public services more responsive and help our private sector to grow and create jobs in all parts of the country. we've asked the independent pay review bodies to looky we ate p evidence of the treasury is submitting to them and some departments will have the option of moving to more local pay for those civil servants whose pay freezes end this year. eaker, new infrastructure and investment, ambitious reforms on planning, education and welfare to help businesses to create jobs, these will all help britain earn its way in the world but we also need a tax system that supports work. 200 years ago, adam smith set out the four principles of good taxation and they remain good principles today. taxes should be simple, predictable, support work and they should be fair. the rich should mpay the most ad

the poor the least. the tax system this government inherited from its predecessor has drifted far from these principles. we have already addressed some of the problems. we've established an office to drive out complexity. companies are moving to britain, not away. we stopped the jobs tax. we've taken one million low-paid people out of tax altogether. but now we need further reform. we need to give britain a modern tax system fit for the modern world. the first goal is a far simpler tax system which businesses can easily navigate and where ordinary taxpayers understand what they're being asked to pay. so we will radically pay the administration of tax for our smallest firms. last year i asked the office of tax simplification for recommendations. they have proposed that we tax small firms and basis of the cash that passes through their

businesses rather than asking them to spend a huge amount of time doing calculations skiend for big businesses. i agree. we will consult on this new cash basis for calculating tax for firms with a turnover up to 77,000 pounds, double what actually the office proposed. this will make filling in tax returns dramatically simpler for up to three million firms. we're also pressing forward with our ambition to integrate the operation of income tax and national insurance i announced at last year's budget so we don't ask businesses to run two different payroll tax administrations. a detailed consultation on how we do this is being published next month. we will also address some of the loopholes and anomalies in our vmpt v.a.t. system. for example, soft drinks and sports drinks are charged vat. hot food on the street are charged but some in supermarkets

are not. some companies are using the v.a.t. rules to avoid the tax that their competitors are paying. we're publishing our plans today to remove loopholes and anomalies but we keep the broad exemptions on food, children's clothes, printed books and newspapers. we should also simplify the age-related allowances which the office of tax simplification have recently highlighted as a particularly complicated feature of the tax system. many pensioners don't understand them. these allowances require 150,000 pensioners to fill in self-assessment forms. as we have real increases in the personal allowance, their value is being eroded away. over time we will simplify the tax system for pensioners by doing away with the complexity of the additional age-related allowances for anyone reaching the age of 65 on or off to the 6th of april 2013 and i will freeze the cash value of the allowance for existing pensioners until it aligns with the personal allowance.

this will protect the existing level of allowance while introducing a new single personal allowance for majal s. it saves money and no pensioner will lose in cash terms. under this government, pensioners next month will receive the largest ever cash increase in the basic state pension of five pounds 30 a week. now we want to simplify the basic state pension and its interaction with the second state pension. i pay tribute to the work my honorable friend, the pensions minister, has done on this. such is the complexity of this system, only someone like our pensions minister can work out exactly what someone is entitled to and what they need to v so i can confirm that we will introduce a new single tier pension for futureovehe means t. this is currently estimated at 140 pounds. it will be based on

contributions. it will cost no more than the year. we will bring forward further details later this spring. a single generous basic state pension for those who have worked hard and saved hard all their lives. and a further major simplification of our tax and benefit system. mr. deputy speaker, in the information age, people should know what taxes they're paying and what their money is being spent on. now, my honorable friends, the member from ipswich recently proposed to this house that we send to taxpayers an annual statement showing them just that. i think this is an excellent idea and i intend to put it into practice. hmrc contacts roughly half of taxpayers each year. from 2014, these 20 million taxpayers will at the same time receive a new personal tax statement. this will tell people houchin

come tax and national insurance they paid. how this contributes to public spending. in other words, how much proportionally of their tax bills goes to fund health care, education and welfare and how much ispent on servicing interest payments on the national debt. peep el -- people will know what they're paying and what they're paying it for. a tax system that is simple and transparent. now, mr. deputy speaker, that is our first goal. our second goal is a tax system that is more competitive for business than any other major economy in the world. our predecessors wanted to increase taxes on small businesses. instead, we've cut the tax rate on small companies to 20%. our predecessors wanted to increase national insurance on jobs and we have cut it.

our new control foreign company rules will be legislated for in the coming finance bill and will stop global firms leaving britain and encourage them to stop coming here. this government also supports research and development here in britain instead of abroad. we've already increased the generosity of the r and d tax credit for smaller firms. i confirm next year we will introduce an above the line tax credit for business organizations. and we will help new startup businesses recruit and retain talent by increasing the grant limit to 250,000 pounds and easing the rules so academics in our universities can turn great ideas into great companies. the treasury will review for this autumn what more we could do to encourage employee ownership. all of these tax reductions will help win business for britain. corporation tax remains the most

visible sign of how competitive or country is. we've already cut the rate from 28% to 26%. this april it is due t fain to . i can tell the house today that we will have a further cut of 1% to be implemented right away. from next month britain will have a corporation tax rate of just 24%. and we will continue with a two perfect cuts plan next year and the year after so that by 2014 britain will have a 22% rate of corporation tax. this is the biggest sustained reduction in business tax rates for a generation. a headline rate that is not just lower than our competitors but dramatically lower. 18% lower than the u.s., 16% lower than japan, 12% below france and 8% below germany. an advertisement for investment and jobs in britain.

and it is a rate that puts our country will be sight of a 20% rate of business thax that would align basic rate income tax, the small companies rate and the small corporation tax rate. i'm increasing the rate of bank levy to 0.1 0e 5% to next january so that additional corporation tax cuts do not benefit the banks. and -- and so our levies will in addition to raise the 2.5 billion pounds a year that we said it would. that brings me to the main duties. let me start with alcohol duty. the government will shortly be publishing its alcohol strategy to address the growing problem of alcohol abuse and the many

billions of pounds it costs our nhs and the criminal justice system. but today i have no further changes to make to the duty rates set out by my predecessor. turning to back duty, smoking remains the biggest cause of preventable illance and premature death in the uk. there is clear evidence that increasing the cost of tobacco encourages smokers to quit and discourages young people from take it up. so duty on all tobacco products will rise by inflation. that's 37 pents on a package of cigarettes and this will take effect 6 p.m. tonight. one area will.i.am today making substantial changes -- one ar where i am making changes is in

the gambling. so i will introduce a new machine games duty where the standard rate of 20% and a lower rate for low stakes apprise machines of 5% of net takings. the current duty regime for remote gambling introduced by the last government was levied on a supply basis. this allowed overseas operators to avoid it and much of the industry has moved offshore. 90% of online gambling is now supplied from outside the uk. the remaining uk operations are under pressure to leave. this is clearly not fair and not a sensible way to support jobs in britain. so we intend to introduce a tax regime based on the place of consumption where the customer's based not the company. and from this april, we will also introduce double taxation for relief for remote gambling. these changes will create a more level playing field and protect jobs here. i turn now to fuel and vehicle excise duties.

high oil prices have put real pressure on household buj budgets and businesses. that is why we took action in last year's budget to cut fuel duty so it is six pence lower than our predecessor's plan. we scrapped the plan of annual above inflation rises regardless of the oil price. and today confirming the fair fuel statement above inflation rises will only occur if the price falls below 45 pounds currently equivalent to $75. these measures mean that this government has eased the burden by 4.5 billion pound at a time when money the very short. i do not propose to make any further changes to the feel duty plans already set up. i am increasing vehicle excise duty by inflation only to encourage fuel efficient fleets we will extend the 100% first year allowance for low emission

business cars, reduce the co 2 threshold for the allowance rates and increase the percentage list price for company cars subject to tax. i can also announce that i am again freezing vehicle excise duty for road warriors. mr. deputy speaker, i now turn to personal and property taxation. my goal is a lowest tax system while the tax revenues we get from the richest increase. now most wealthy people pay their taxes and without them we could not begin to afford the public services upon which this country depends. but under the last government, it was the boast of some high earners with the help of their accountants they were paying less in tax than their cleaners.

tax avoidance is morally repugnant. we've increased both the resources and the number of staff working on evasion and avoidance at hmrc. taken together the anti-avoidance measures will increase tax revenue over the next five years by a billion pounds and protect a further ten billion pound that could have been lost. this week we have signed a further agreement with the swiss to stop uk residents from evading tax. we've done all these things but today we do even more. i asked to establish whether a general anti-avoidance rule could work in the uk tax system. he recommended that such a rule would improve our ability to tackle tax avoidance without damaging the competitiveness of the uk as a place to do business. we agreed so we will introduce one. we will consult on the details of the new rule and legislate for it in next year's finance

bill. a major source of abuse and one that rouses the anger of many of our citizens is the way some people avoid the stamp duty that the rest of the population pays including by using companies to buy expensive residential property. identify given plenty of public warnings that this abuse should stop and now we are taking action. i am increasing the stamp duty land tax charged applied to residential properties in a corporate envelope. the charge will be 15% and it will take effect today. we will also consult on the introduction of a large annual charge on those two million pound residential properties which are already contained in corporate envelopes and to ensure the wealthy nonresidents are also caught by these changes, we'll be introducing

capital gains tax on residential property held in overseas envelopes. we are also announcing legislation today to close down the sub cells relief rules as a route of avoidance and let me make this absolutely clear to people, if you buy a property in britain that is used for residential purposes we expect stamp duty to be paid. this is the clear intention of parliament. i will not hesitate to move swiftly without notice if inappropriate ways around these new rules are facultied. people have been warned. now mr. deputy speaker, it is fair when money is tight and so many families could do with help that those buying the most expensive homes contribute more. from midnight tonight we will introduce a new stamp