I wonder how many of those FTSE 250 companies remunerate all their employees sufficiently that they do not require in-work benefits? Why should companies who do pay well be forced to subsidise their competitors through paying corporation tax and NI?

If the delinquent companies could be encouraged to remunerate their employees sufficiently that there was no requirement for in-work benefits, then taxes could reduce. I thought that wa s a major aim of the tories?

My point is entirely valid. The issue that I was leading up to is that the problem is not with the company's but with the incompetence of our legislators (effectively our politicians and more particularly our lawyers) who draft poor law.

As to your other points - I always thought "Common Law", for instance, referred to an entire body of law not?

Why do HMRC do these deals? Presumably because they consider that the law is poorly drafted and if they were to lose in Court they would potentially lose alot more revenue. So, as you say Vodafone paid the correct amount of tax under the State's own best interpretation of the law. In other words, the fault lies with the lawyers again.

See my reply. I think your statement regarding Vodafone is a dangerous one unless you have evidence that they did not comply with the law.

Companies pay the market rate for the employees they need to run their business. If they operate in a field where they need people with specific skills and there are only a handful of those people about they pay through the nose. If they need someone who has everyday skills and there are lots of those people prepared to work for them then pay will reflect that.

But the real issue comes back to global competitiveness. As many of the UKs businesses priced themselves out of the market - through not producing quality but rather mass market products inefficiently - high land costs, high relative wages, poor production practices there is too little real wealth creation. Accordingly we have a few highly profitable industries but a huge number of people employed in other mainly service industries that are either funded out of taxation or are providing services to a very price sensitive mass market (eg supermarkets). In these circumstances, it is inevitable that wages will be driven down. This process will continue until we are on a par with the emerging economies. There will be no escaping that as we are not a country that could survive prosperously by protectionism and by shunning trade.

It's not a dangerous statement at all since, firstly, I never mentioned the law therefore making it subjective and secondly they've had numerous disputes with HMRC and come to several deals with them over time. So they, at least for a time, weren't paying what they should have done.

But your reply doesn't advance us anywhere does it? Because you've adopted the tactic our resident right-wingers adopt when they don't know what else to post of swerving and avoiding the question or topic at hand. So again, what do you think to the rest of my point rather than one incredibly narrow and almost irrelevant element of it?

Quite clearly they don't though, since they rely on the taxpayer to make sure that some of their employees do not have to sleep on the streets or go without food every day, neither of which would be particularly conducive to good business.

I think you're missing the fundamental point - they pay what people are "willing" to work for not to support any particular standard of living for them. If their actions are not good for business (and I express no opinion on that) then their businesses will decline and their competitors will gain. They will then amend their practices or go into terminal decline.

Another point, if things are so awful in the UK why is net immigration so high?

I take no particular delight in people not earning enough to live on, but a major problem I have with your argument is that it suggests that it is the responsibility of an employer to take over the general management of their employees lives. I don't see it as my employer's responsibility to manage my household, feed, clothe and educate my kids, pay my mortgage etc. I sell my labour to my employer, but I don't belong to them, I'm not a chattel, we have contract for the exchange of labour not one for general ownership of my life. If you believe that the employer should effectively take on responsibilities currently provided by the state around the mimimum welfare of people's lives what rights are you going to hand over to the employers on the flip side? Remember the responsibilities of the state are not unconditional, the state reserves certain rights over those who consume it's goods.

Investor look for a rate of return on their investments, business look for a rate of return on the capital they invest (which comes from their investors), and in most cases they are looking for a normal rate of profit for their industry, that's how they should be managing themselves (whether they are any good at it, or doing it optimally or efficiently is a case by case argument not directly relevant). If actually what you think they should be doing is acting as quasi-state actors, providing some sort of benevolent management of their employees lives, then they're not really businesses and investors anymore they are just another part of the state.

No, I simply believe that an employer should pay his employees a rate of pay that doesn't require topping up by the state to enable their employees to house and feed themselves

I assume you meant net migration rather than net immigration, but either way it's not.
Immigration is lower than at any point in the last 10 years and net migration is lower in 2012 than since June 2004 bar a brief dip in late 2008/early 2009.