Tax Avoidance (Public Servants)

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

Yes, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right on the point of fact. It is fair to say that this Government have taken strong action to deal with both tax avoidance, where we wish to remove schemes that people use to minimise the amount of tax they pay, and tax evasion, which, as he says, is illegal. We announced an initial £900 million in the spending review for HMRC to invest for that purpose. As a result, we are, for example, quadrupling the number of court cases for tax evasion, to ensure that we make an example of people.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

At this time of austerity, when the poor are being made to suffer for the behaviour of the rich, is the right hon. Gentleman ashamed that his Government have failed to do anything to stop such tax avoidance? What will he do to close that loophole across all taxpayers?

[Danny Alexander]

I think a better way to characterise what is going on in the economy at the moment is that the whole country is being made to pay for the mistakes made by the previous Government. I have already set out the action that we taking. An urgent review is taking place, both in Departments and through the Treasury, which I put in place because I take such matters incredibly seriously. That review is of a piece with the enormously wide range of action to tackle tax avoidance and tax evasion that has been put in place by this Government. As just one example, the high net worth individuals unit was not put in place by the previous Government until they had been in office for 12 years. That was 12 years of inaction on tax avoidance in that part of the population. Contrast that with the record of this Government and we see a coalition Government who view making sure that everyone pays their fair share of tax with the utmost seriousness.