Lord Barnett
Main Page: Lord Barnett (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Barnett's debates with the HM Treasury
(12 years ago)
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Lord Newby
My Lords, tobacco smuggling is a significant issue but in the overall quantum of tax that is currently not paid but should be, it represents a relatively small proportion.
Lord Barnett
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Dubs is quite right, but should the answer not be that there is nothing whatever that the Government can do until there is international agreement which, sadly, is unlikely to happen in the very near future?
Lord Newby
We need a greater degree of international agreement and that is why, along with France and Germany, we have just contributed an extra €150,000 to the OECD’s work to change the basis of accounting. We can do only a certain amount ourselves. It would be a counsel of despair to say that we cannot change the rules; the rules exist and can be changed.