The UK may be ‘open for business’ but the reality is that business – or at least that contingent which contributes the equivalent of a quarter of the UK’s corporation tax bill (£11.2bn forecast for 2011/12) – is still reeling from the beating it has received over the last decade.

For the oil and gas sector, the changes announced in the Budget indicate the government is paying attention to warnings of a significant withdrawal of investment spend in the region on account of an increasingly hostile tax regime.