Oral Answers to Questions

Anas Sarwar Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to discuss this issue with my hon. Friend. For many years, my family used a children’s hospice in Oxford that got absolutely no state support at all. What this Government have done is continue with the £10 million going annually to support children’s hospices, and this year we have added an extra £720,000. However, what we want to put in place, and what we are discussing with the providers of both adult and children’s hospices, is a per-patient funding system that would be for all hospices. I think that would bring a greater logic and consistency to how we support this absolutely essential part of both our health service and, I would argue, our big society.

[Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)]

Q15. Is the Prime Minister aware that Amazon, a global company, turned over £3.3 billion in the UK this year, paid not a single penny in corporation tax and yet was rewarded with a £10 million grant from the Scottish National party Government in Scotland? Does that not demonstrate that both our Prime Minister and our First Minister stand up for the wrong people? When will this Government move away from punishing the poorest in society and focus on those who avoid and evade?

[The Prime Minister]

The point I would make to the hon. Gentleman is that there is common ground between us, which is that we want those large multinational companies to pay proper taxes here in the UK. We believe that you do that by having low tax rates—and we have reduced the rate of corporation tax—and ensuring that they declare their income properly. On the specific issue of transfer payments, some companies have been pursuing rather strange practices to pretend that their revenues are not delivered here in the UK to run down their tax bills. As I have said, in the past four years we have recovered £4 billion in tax revenue in that way, but the Treasury and the HMRC very much know that there is more we can do.