Tax: Church Action for Tax Justice Reports

Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD) [V]]

My Lords, Tax for the Common Good is a great analysis of the nature of taxes in the UK, and if it does not prick consciences, it should. Time restricts me to two areas in which I have been active. On page 4, we are reminded that tax is to provide revenue which funds quality public services and infrastructure for everyone.

We have been through a time of austerity that has cut deeply and unfairly into social funding, and we do not have the quality of services we should. I do not underestimate the terror that Treasury folk faced at the time of the financial crisis—I was looking into the abyss, too, so I know how it feels now as well—but we cannot forget the poorest people because they have less voice. And, although welcome, it is regrettable that universal credit seemed to get a temporary boost only when new, better-off cohorts of people became reliant on it because of the pandemic. It is the unanimous conclusion of the Lords Economic Affairs Committee report into universal credit—not a soft-touch committee —that cuts went too far. The biggest shame is how we can ever say that the future is being taken care of when one-third of children live in poverty: it is cruel, short-sighted and not the path to prosperity.

My second point is that we should stop hiding corporate activity and wealth. Page 7 reminds us about automatic information exchange, country-by-country reporting, public registers of beneficial owners and OECD rules, including BEPS. These are measures I have fought over many years to get this far, first in the EU and recently in your Lordships’ House, and I am bitterly disappointed that further steps are always delayed or thwarted, with corporate interests rallying threats about how disasters will befall if information is made available—almost always without real evidence. It is not evidence just because someone says it in a consultation reply, or bends the ear of Ministers or Commissioners. I took on corporate excuses in the final negotiations to get country-by-country reporting for banks into EU legislation, forcing through a sunrise clause that took effect unless harm was proven by a certain date—and harm was not demonstrated.

So, as these issues come around again, call the bluff, switch the burdens of proof and let us make progress. Will the Government do that?