Catherine West
Main Page: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)Department Debates - View all Catherine West's debates with the HM Treasury
(7 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mel Stride
My hon. Friend is right to point out the difference. The tax gap today is 6%, which is about the lowest in the world and the lowest in the history of our country. As I said earlier, if we had had the same average tax gap as Labour during its term in office, we would be more than £40 billion out of pocket—less money, as the shadow Chancellor put it, for the nurses, the doctors, the paramedics, the police, the Army and the others in our public services.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
There are some things we do know, however: some large accounting firms are being investigated for poor practice that assists and colludes in tax avoidance and evasion. Will the Minister clarify what will be done to clamp down on those who collude with those who do not want to do the right thing?
Mel Stride
The Finance Bill, which has just gone through the House, contains important provisions to clamp down on those who enable tax avoidance—the category of individual and company to which the hon. Lady refers—and those are some pretty stiff penalties.