Kevin Brennan
Main Page: Kevin Brennan (Labour - Cardiff West)Department Debates - View all Kevin Brennan's debates with the HM Treasury
(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Osborne
The hon. Gentleman says that that’s the Tory party, but, as it happens, I think my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) is referring to the newspaper accounts of the Labour leader. I am not going to get drawn into that. Of course there is a difference in law between tax avoidance and tax evasion, although the shadow Chancellor managed to mess it up in the question he put today, but I have said as well that aggressive tax avoidance is something we also need to clamp down on and stop, and we have taken many actions to do so.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
The Chancellor said he was answering all the questions, but, as I heard him, he left out the second part of the question about the deal with the Swiss authorities, which was why was a deal signed which prevents the UK from actively obtaining similar information in the future. Will he tell our constituents why the Government decided to do that deal?
Mr Osborne
I can confirm that the agreement we have signed would not prevent us from receiving the so-called Lagarde list in exactly the way that we have been doing. Also, thanks to the Prime Minister’s leadership at the G8, we will now have an automatic exchange of information with Switzerland from 2017. That is one of the most important steps forward in tackling tax evasion. The answer is—[Interruption.] The shadow Chancellor is again not listening to the answers that he is getting across the Dispatch Box; the problem is that all his questions have been answered. The answer is that our agreement with Switzerland would not prevent us from receiving the Lagarde list.