§ Mr. MitchellTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his answer of 26 October 1998,Official Report, column 42, if he will publish the costs to public 589W funds of introducing a tonnage-based tax on British shipping at rates comparable to those levied by other member states of the European Community, together with his estimate of the future trend in the yield from shipping taxes if the current tax regime is retained. [60097]
§ Dawn PrimaroloIt would be disproportionately costly to produce a reliable estimate of the cost of introducing a tonnage tax for UK shipping. We do not produce separate forecasts of the tax yield from shipping companies.