Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Morgan of Cotes Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

The issue that the hon. Gentleman identifies is an important element of the tax avoidance that has been happening in our country. The vast majority of people pay the correct level of tax, but there have been schemes, such as the disguised remuneration schemes to which he refers, through which essentially very little tax indeed has been paid. The Government believe that that is wrong and that we should act to clean up the arrangements. We have given individuals until April 2019 to do exactly that. On the support that he mentions, HMRC’s door is of course always open for individuals in that situation to have discussions. I would urge all those individuals to make contact with HMRC to find a sensible way forward.

[Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)]

I warmly welcome what the Chancellor says about putting all information before Parliament before we vote on the final withdrawal agreement later this year, but of course that will not be the end of parliamentary involvement, because we will have to onshore all the current EU financial services legislation, including the binding technical standards. Will the Chancellor set out the Treasury’s thinking so far about how that process will be democratically accountable to Parliament or perhaps the Select Committees?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

My right hon. Friend asks about Parliament’s role in dealing with the onshoring of a very large number of financial services regulations. Some of them will be dealt with through a parliamentary process, but other areas of financial services regulation are dealt with by the independent regulators—the Financial Conduct Authority and the Bank of England. I will write to her and give her as much detail as I can about how that will break down between the different categories.