Finance (No. 2) Bill

Alex Chalk Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 19th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend on that. There is a particular onus on the Government to be steadfast and clear in their rejection of those legal challenges and the problems they potentially pose to our democracy. Of course it is just the BBC and The Guardian that have been threatened with legal action, not any of the other 90 or so media outlets based in other countries. It is UK-based firms and media organisations that have been threatened with that action, so I hope the Minister will make clear to us today whether or not he agrees with Appleby’s threat of legal action against those who revealed the details of the Paradise papers in the public interest.

Many of the measures in the Bill intended to prevent aggressive tax avoidance and evasion do not go far enough. I have already referred in this House to clause 21, which seems to adopt a confusing new approach to measuring profit shifting, rather than aiming to reduce it per se. Yet again, there sadly appears to be deafening silence here concerning the need for tax simplification, with only minor measures that do not meet the required standard of a thoroughgoing, holistic assessment of the overall impacts of tax reliefs, which we desperately need in this country if we are to have proper Government accounting.

Finally, we see in the Bill a number of additional measures that seem intended mainly just to clean up previous mistakes by this Government, many of them following criticism from Labour Members. In clause 35 and schedule 10, for example, we find anti-avoidance provisions in relation to payments and benefits made from offshore trusts, no doubt reflecting the concerns we raised about the potential misuse of offshore trusts by non-doms. Let us be clear, before this issue crops up yet again in this debate: this Government have not abolished long-term, non-dom status. The new measures do not apply to those whose parents are non-doms, as is often the case, and a 15-year window is provided for individuals to get their affairs in order. In another example, clause 28 closes the loophole introduced by the coalition Government in 2011 that allowed foreign companies to hold on to an asset-stripped subsidiary for six years until they were then able to claim loss relief in excess of any genuine economic loss to the group. Again, the measure tidies up a problem that was created previously by those involved with this Administration.

To conclude, this Finance Bill was a chance for strong action against aggressive tax avoidance and evasion, but, sadly, we have here a paltry Bill, which some Conservative Members have praised in some of these debates for being thin. It is not thin because it is concise; it is thin because, sadly, just like this Government, it is lacking in ideas and ambition. We need a change now, more than ever.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

I welcome this Finance Bill, because it does three things so far as taxation is concerned: first, it prioritises increasing the total pot for public services while recognising the common-sense proposition that we must live within our means; secondly, it entrenches and enhances the fundamentally progressive nature of the tax system; and, thirdly, it redoubles our country’s efforts to tackle tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance. The theme that unites those three strands is a relentless focus on discharging our obligation to the next generation: on ensuring that we are laying the foundations for a better, fairer country; one whose best days are yet to come. In doing so, we are observing our solemn duty to those who will come after us. We must not fail them, not just because history will condemn us if we do not, but because we ought to be able in this House to recognise that moral obligation for ourselves.

On tax avoidance and evasion, there has rightly been a sense that multinational corporations have been seeking to game the taxation system, using their market power to their financial advantage. That sticks in my craw, the craw of my constituents and the craw of Members across this House, because when we talk about the rule of law, that is about ensuring that we are all equal before not only the criminal law, but taxation law. Few things are more corrosive to public confidence in the enterprise economy than the sense that large corporations are wriggling out of their responsibilities to society—these responsibilities provide free healthcare and education, as well as a safe and secure environment to operate in. So I welcome the fact that the tax gap in our country has been driven down significantly, from 8% to 6%. That translates into an additional £12.5 billion per annum, which is more than the entire Ministry of Justice budget and far more than the entire annual spend on the prison system. We have the lowest tax gap in the world.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that that 6% does not take into account profit shifting? It comes from HMRC effectively marking its own homework and patting itself on the back.

[Alex Chalk]

Absolutely not. It is an internationally recognised statistic that shows that this country bears comparison with any other developed nation in the world, and it marks a significant improvement on the situation that prevailed under the previous Labour Government. The fact is that more than £160 billion extra has been received since 2010. To put that into context, it is more than the entire annual NHS budget.

We have addressed egregious loopholes that allowed some foreign nationals not to pay capital gains tax when they sold houses in the UK. That allowed people to live in the UK permanently but claim non-dom status; and it allowed people to avoid paying tax by calling their salary from their own company a loan. Those were abuses and we have closed them down. It is important to note that the UK has spearheaded a groundbreaking initiative to share information on beneficial ownership with more than 50 jurisdictions, including every British overseas territory and Crown dependency with a financial centre.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alex Chalk]

No, because I am going to conclude.

All that I have described shows the UK’s commitment to transparency and that we are at the cutting edge of financial propriety.

It is absolutely right that the Government take further action to raise £4.8 billion by 2022-23. First, we are tackling online VAT evasion by making online marketplaces jointly liable for their sellers’ unpaid VAT; secondly, we are investing an additional £150 million to fund HMRC staff and the latest technology; and thirdly, we are tackling further disguised remuneration schemes, because if people are gaming the system, we should call it out.

In short, the Bill bears down on aggressive tax avoidance and evasion. It sends out the clear message that we in this country believe in innovation, modernisation, investment and employment. We will back businesses that unlock human potential and generate jobs and wages, but we expect businesses to play by the rules, honour their dues to society and respect the next generation. The Bill meets those priorities and lays the foundations for a country that is fit for the future.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that above all else, this is about persistent, detailed work over time to close the loopholes and deal with the tax gap? It is not about making a speech and pretending we can spend all the money that is being lost; it is a question of grinding away over time and getting the tax gap down from 8% to 6% and so on.

[Alex Chalk]

As always, my right hon. and learned Friend hits the nail on the head. There is no substitute for hard, detailed work. Ultimately, it is a game of cat and mouse, because those who seek to avoid tax will be ever more inventive. It requires detailed work to ensure that the loopholes are closed, and the Government are absolutely committed to that task. The Bill shows that and I am happy to support it.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I shall speak briefly. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) on her excellent Front-Bench speech.

Early in his speech, the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) talked about morality. There is morality in paying tax: we cannot have a civilised society without people paying tax to pay for public services and income being redistributed from those who have more than they need to those who have less than they need.

The crisis in 2008 and the problem of tax avoidance and evasion, overseas tax havens and so on, all arose as a result of Geoffrey Howe’s disastrous decision in 1979 to abolish exchange controls immediately. That led to the crisis and the massive flows of money across national boundaries around the world, causing all sorts of problems. Even the then Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, suggested to the Treasury Committee at the time of the 2008 crisis that if things got really bad, we might have had to reintroduce exchange controls. I am not suggesting that I will be able to persuade the Government to do that at this stage, but in time we are going to have to look at how we manage the vast flows of money across national boundaries around the world. It is the bankers who are the crooks—not the good bankers who look after our ordinary accounts, but those who gamble with money and often worthless bits of paper on the foreign exchanges.

The hon. Member for Cheltenham talked about morality. Millions of ordinary people in this country do have a very moral sense. Many of them, including me—I am very well paid compared with ordinary people—say that they would pay a bit more tax if they could guarantee that the money went to the health service and to people who are less well off than themselves. At the same time, the mega rich, the corporates and the bankers are resisting any kind of constraint on their activities. I see where the morality lies: it lies with decent ordinary people, not with bankers. We must constrain those bankers somehow and have serious measures that will actually have the effect of stopping the tax avoidance and tax evasion that has bedevilled our society for so long.