Taxation: Avoidance

Lord Barnett Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I remind my noble friend that the coalition Government’s policy in this area is that we will make every effort to tackle tax avoidance, including detailed development of Liberal Democrat policy. The policies that were in my noble friend’s party manifesto at the election are indeed getting detailed consideration. In particular, as he knows, the general anti-avoidance rule, which was the linchpin of those policies, has been the subject of recent consultation.

[Lord Barnett]

My Lords, this morning the Chancellor repeated what the Minister said to me in a Written Answer—namely, that it is hoped that doing something about tax avoidance will achieve £7 billion. In his Written Answer to me on 7 October, he said,

“separate figures are not available for avoidance and evasion, and could be produced only at disproportionate cost”.—[Official Report, 7/10/10; col. WA 28.]

In that case, how will he ever be able to say that he has saved £7 billion? Will he still be using it in his deficit-cutting programme?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, it may be helpful if I make it clear that the £900 million of additional money that HMRC will have to use is principally to tackle tax evasion. We are talking about avoidance this afternoon, but the £7 billion will principally be from money that is not avoided but evaded.