Tax Avoidance and Evasion

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

I want to make a few more points. Even before last week, HMRC had already received a great deal of information on offshore companies, including those in Panama and including Mossack Fonseca. This information comes from a wide range of sources and is currently the subject of intensive investigation. HMRC has asked the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the BBC and The Guardian to share the data they have received from last week’s leaks. Clearly, it is important to examine the data very closely, which is why we are providing new funding of up to £10 million for an operationally independent cross-agency taskforce to analyse the Panama papers and take action on any wrongdoing and regulatory breaches. The taskforce will include analysts, compliance specialists and investigators from across HMRC, the National Crime Agency, the Serious Fraud Office and the Financial Conduct Authority. Between them, those agencies will have some of the most sophisticated technology, experts and resources to tackle money laundering and tax evasion anywhere in the world. The taskforce will report to my right hon. Friends the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Home Secretary on the strategy for taking action, and we will update Parliament later this year. I stress that the taskforce will have total operational independence. If it finds people to prosecute, it will prosecute them. If it finds information about illegality, it can act on it. In addition, the independent FCA has written to financial firms asking them to declare their links to Mossack Fonseca. If the FCA were to find any evidence that firms have been breaking the rules, it, too, has strong powers to take punitive action.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

The Minister mentioned last year’s Budget and the £800 million for non-compliance issues. However, I understand from his answer to a written question that only £266 million of that has been allocated specifically to address tax fraud. How much of that will be spent on dealing with tax evasion?

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[James Cartlidge]

We have a record low in the number of workless households. Worklessness is the single biggest cause of poverty. The Government have a very strong record on dealing with poverty, and I will come on to that.

[Debbie Abrahams]

It is generous of the hon. Gentleman to give way, but I have to challenge him on his last point. There are more people in work who are in poverty than ever before.

[James Cartlidge]

I simply do not agree with that. I want to start by focusing on the action that has been taken, because I do not think that the anger out there is caused by a lack of action.

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[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

What has been highlighted by the publication of the so-called Panama papers is that we do not have a fair tax system. We are not all in it together, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) said so eloquently. Those exposed by this scandal have knowingly exploited tax avoidance measures for their own financial gain. While it is not technically illegal, aggressive tax avoidance has been argued to be against the spirit and intention of the law and of the will of this House. What is really shocking is that Heads of Government are involved, including our own Prime Minister, and that poses fundamental questions about politics and politicians. Once again, it threatens public confidence and trust in politics and politicians. These people are meant to be providing leadership to our citizens, and such involvement calls into question their attitudes and values, as well as their motives for seeking public office.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend think the comments that have been made—for instance, the right hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan) said, “If you are not wealthy, you are a low achiever”—have added to the public’s distrust of politicians in this place?

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[Debbie Abrahams]

Such a comment adds to the dissatisfaction with politics and politicians as a whole, as I have said. I thought it was a very insulting statement.

As Members on both sides of the House have already said, the Panama papers provide more evidence of the existence of a powerful and indifferent elite, for whom the accumulation of personal wealth at the expense of their fellow citizens is paramount. The evasion and avoidance of tax means that less money is collected by the Exchequer for our pensioners, disabled people and the vulnerable, as well as for doctors, nurses, teachers and all the other public servants funded by public money. Fundamentally, dodging paying a fair share of tax is contributing to growing inequality in this country and across the world, and tax havens are at the heart of this.

Many Members will have seen Oxfam’s report last month. It says the UK heads the world’s biggest financial secrecy network, which spans its Crown dependencies and overseas territories, and is centred on the City of London. Collectively, it is estimated to account for nearly a quarter of global financial services provided to non-residents within any given jurisdiction. The UK takes prime position out of all jurisdictions across the world in the Tax Justice Network’s financial secrecy index, which is hardly something we should be proud of.

The National Audit Office has estimated that the tax gap is £34 billion a year, which is £1 billion more than in 2009. That is equivalent to a third of the NHS’s national budget. About half of the tax gap is accounted for by tax fraud, which includes tax evasion, criminal activity and the hidden or grey economy. When we consider the cuts proposed in last month’s Budget in relation to the personal independent payment for disabled people, we can see that figure for half of the tax gap would pay the whole annual budget for people on the disability living allowance and PIP.

HMRC’s compliance units, now merged into the fraud investigation service, tackle all aspects of non-compliance. According to the NAO, they do not record how much of the revenue they successfully recover relates to tax evasion, but the NAO estimates that the figure is about 30%. One of the issues that HMRC has to face is the need to balance what it can get in quickly, as low-hanging fruit, from low-risk, low-visibility and lower-gain operations with what it can get in from the high-risk, high-visibility and higher-gain and more complex criminal cases. This is where political leadership comes in. Such leadership has been seriously absent, as I shall mention later.

In spite of the 2013 G8 commitment to a common reporting standard at a global level, the Government have dragged their feet and obfuscated on comprehensive action on such measures. I welcome what the Government have proposed this week, but why—six years later—is that happening now? As I asked in an intervention, I would be grateful to the Financial Secretary if he responded on how much of the £266 million that has been specifically allocated to address tax fraud is to deal with tax evasion.

HMRC now has additional staff, with 670 new staff acting on tax evasion, but why were nearly 6,000 HMRC staff let go between 2013 and 2015? Has the 10% reduction in the number of HMRC staff since 2008 actually affected the collection of the moneys owed because of tax evasion?

As I say, I welcome the additional measures that have been taken, but the absolute outrage at this is clear from my mailbox, which I am sure is the same for other Members. There is palpable public anger. My hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) summed it up perfectly: when people are really struggling, it is shocking to see such absolute abuse by a tiny minority.

We need to look at this in the context of the Government’s other benefits and tax measures. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the regressive Budgets during the past six years have left people on low and middle incomes proportionately worse off. That is a result of the tax and social security measures. Projections for the next five years show that there will be increasing poverty and inequalities. All of that compounds the anger that people are feeling. In such a context, the vast accumulation of wealth by the wealthiest is very shocking. In the past 15 years, those in the top 1% have increased their wealth by 79%, which is £3.7 million per person, while someone in the bottom 10% has seen a rise of just 45%, which is £1,600 per person.

In addition to the Prime Minister’s admission in his statement last week that he had benefited from an investment in an offshore trust based in a tax haven, he intervened in 2013 to oppose the beneficiaries of offshore trusts being named in proposed EU money laundering rules. This is what I mean by the need for political leadership. There has been an absence of political leadership, contrary to what can be deemed fair. I am conscious of the time, so I will not pursue that point. Our proposals will make a real difference, and I hope that Members will look at them.