Professor Philip Lane:

I do not dwell on it especially. I think there was a line in it about international tax arrangements.

It is obvious to everyone that it is hard to assess the future of our corporation tax revenue. We think it is wiser to assume that some of it might not be in place forever. We might want to save it for a rainy day, or consider it in the context of a build-up of public investment. As we frame the debate about the public finances, it is important to make a distinction between uncertain revenues and revenues on which we can rely. Before we doubled down, we had a construction-driven economy and a reliance on construction-related tax revenue. That link is broken with the global corporations. The economy is growing. The profits of the global corporations more or less depend on their global activity. They could reverse, even if the economy was doing okay. It is a different risk. It is definitely a big risk management issue for everyone to think about. How much of it is potentially at risk? On how much can we rely? Given that we are living in an uncertain world, we do not really know how to balance these risks. It is an obvious challenge for us all.