Professor Michael McMahon:

There is no suggestion that we would put everything into a savings vehicle. There is already a huge increase in corporation tax, which is not labelled or determined. However, as we have said many times to this committee, and as we have said in our reports, there is a lot of uncertainty about how you estimate what is excess. We had this discussion last time we were here, and explained some of the uncertainties around it.

Currently, a large amount of corporation tax enters as normal revenue and we have not at all suggested putting that into a savings vehicle. A lot of corporation tax, much higher sums than in other European countries, is already going into core current spending and capital spending.

As for the specific question, we are not suggesting that more investment cannot be made in infrastructure or anything else. Within the net national spending rule, the "net" is a really important part. It would be perfectly within the rules, in the example the Deputy gave, for taxes to be levied, raised or applied to one part of the country to spend more in another part of the country. It would be possible for that to be perfectly compliant with the rules while ramping up spending in one area and reducing it in another, or taxed in one area and not in another. We do not take views on individual specific policies nor - this will not surprise the Deputy - do we take them on specific regional or industrial policies. At the aggregate level, however, within the fiscal numbers, it is perfectly possible to have policies of the sort the Deputy is describing within the rules the Government has set out for the net national spending rule.