Baroness Kramer
Main Page: Baroness Kramer (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Kramer's debates with the Cabinet Office
(3 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberAs I answered to an earlier question, we are not yet in a position to announce whether we support that specific rate. Our policy has always been to put the emphasis on pillar one, which is the allocation of profits in the countries in which they are generated. To go back to my earlier point, if a company is going to use the infrastructure of a country in terms of its affluent, well-educated population, and take profits from it, it must contribute to it, too.
My Lords, do the Government understand, having listened to the international response to the Biden Administration and Janet Yellen’s proposals, that pillars one and two hang together and that there is no serious prospect of getting a solution to the right of countries to tax multinationals appropriately for the activities in their country unless there is also a common agreement on a minimum global corporate tax? Do the British Government accept that underlying principle, even if they dispute the rate?
The overriding position is that we welcome the American Government’s re-engagement in this process. As realists, we accept it will not happen without full American support. We agree with the noble Baroness that these things hang together, and it will be a cohesive result that will work.