Our reaction to this news is how excellent. For this means we can cut another one third off corporation tax:

Taxpayers plough £17bn a year into business support schemes which are often poorly designed, badly monitored and barely coordinated, the National Audit Office (NAO) has found.

The Government runs more than 100 programmes to help companies to grow, at a total cost of more than £17bn. These include targeted tax reliefs, advice services and grants to boost productivity.

But the money is at risk of being badly spent as results are not watched closely, the watchdog said, while poor coordination and marketing means the companies most in need of the aid may not know it exists or struggle to find it.

£17 billion a year is being micturated away simply because government is a bad manner of doing these things. Excellent, so, let’s stop government doing these things.

If we’re not to waste £17 billion a year on business then we can stop raising £17 billion a year from business too. Corporation tax raises some £51 billion a year at present.

Thus, stop wasting £17 billion a year, don’t raise £17 billion a year and cut the corporation tax rate by one third. Sometimes economics really is just this simple.

Taxing business to subsidise business is always a slightly odd proposition. Taxing business in order to waste the money is just silly.