Paradise Papers

Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord is right that we have been looking at this for a long time, but we have also been acting for a long time. Since 2010, we have introduced almost 100 measures that have raised £160 billion in tax revenue. That is more than the combined health budget for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. We have one of the lowest tax gaps in the world—certainly the lowest on record in this country. We have been working very hard and taking this very seriously and will continue to do so.

As regards the overseas territories and Crown dependencies, again, this has been taken very seriously. Just two weeks ago at the joint ministerial council, the Prime Minister stressed the importance of this. We already have central registers in four of those authorities, including the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and Gibraltar. Montserrat and Anguilla will have registers by April of next year. The Turks and Caicos Islands have been particularly affected by the hurricane, so they have been given a little extra time, but we are very clear that action needs to be taken.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords, the Council of the European Union, meeting in Brussels a week last Monday, issued its blacklist of tax havens. Its conclusions reveal that a number of British dependencies and overseas territories on the grey list have entered into commitments with the EU to implement tax good governance principles. Specifically, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Guernsey, the Isle of Man and Jersey have undertaken to address concerns about their tax regimes, which produce profits without real economic activity. Do the Government support the EU in this initiative, and will they impose the same sanctions on non-compliant countries after Brexit as the EU proposes?

[Lord Bates]

We certainly support the work that ECOFIN has undertaken in producing this report. We have been at the forefront of the whole process. We recognise the statements on, and identification of, those jurisdictions that are co-operative. That is an important point to stress: none of the Crown dependencies or overseas territories was listed as non-co-operative; they were all on the co-operative list. Areas in which the Council wants activity to take place have been identified, and we fully support that.