Well, what a busy Statement and probably slightly more on the tax front than we were expecting!

On the capital allowances front, the Chancellor confirmed that 100% allowances would be made available for investment in Plant & Machinery in 6 enterprise zones; the Black Country, Humber, Liverpool, North Eastern, Sheffield and Tees Valley. Unlike the EZAs that we had in the past, which gave relief for expenditure on new property expenditure, these allowances will (it appears) be restricted to expenditure on plant & machinery. They should, nonetheless, still prove to be very valuable to businesses in those areas.

The Chancellor also announced that the Government will be introducing an Above The Line (ATL) R&D credit from 2013. This is really good news as such a relief should be far more effective at incentivising R&D spend in the UK than the current regime. I have previously Blogged on this issue on 22 September 2011, so I won’t repeat the arguments here. The plan is to launch consultation on this at the time of the 2012 Budget. Designing an ATL credit that does not cost the Treasury too much but still achieves its objectives will not be easy, as evidenced by discussions on the matter at the R&D Working Group. It is likely to be a busy time!

Finally, the Government has confirmed that further details of the proposed Patent Box regime and of the reform of the Controlled Foreign Company rules and R&D tax credits will all be published on 6 December 2011 (the day before I am due to present on these very topics in London!)