Panama Papers Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

Panama Papers

Chris Bryant Excerpts
Monday 11th April 2016

(8 years, 7 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton Portrait The Prime Minister
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I have always thought of the right hon. Lady as a high achiever. She certainly put the boot into my predecessor more effectively than I ever did. I remember that very well.

Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton Portrait The Prime Minister
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No, not that one. The point about country-to-country reporting is that what we are trying to achieve, as I said in my opening statement, is a common reporting standard, so that companies report to tax authorities in the same way; and the sharing of that information, so that we can see whether company A is paying x amount of tax in one jurisdiction and y amount in the other, and if that is not right, we can do something about it. That, at the moment, is the most powerful way of achieving what we want to achieve. There are those who say that we need to go even further in public declarations of tax. That is a very interesting argument, but let us not make the best the enemy of the good. We have got a very solid way now of making sure that these companies pay tax properly, and I want to see that completed.