Jonathan Edwards
Main Page: Jonathan Edwards (Independent - Carmarthen East and Dinefwr)Department Debates - View all Jonathan Edwards's debates with the Cabinet Office
(11 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberI am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. Clearly, the register of beneficial ownership will help with this issue, because companies will have to declare who owns them. That will be one way that tax authorities in developing countries, for example, will be able to ensure that bribes are not paid and so on. That is part of the point of the register.
The Prime Minister said that the tax evasion provisions in the G8 agreement would raise £1 billion per annum for the Exchequer. What about the other £29 billion that is lost each year illegally, according to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs?
If we look at all the things the Government have done, the Swiss deal raised billions of pounds and I have mentioned the Crown dependencies and overseas territories. The more countries that sign up to these multilateral exchanges and the automatic exchange of information, the more money we will be able to recover.