Baroness Hodge of Barking
Main Page: Baroness Hodge of Barking (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Hodge of Barking's debates with the HM Treasury
(7 years ago)
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Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)
The real problem with all the action that has been taken so far is that it has not got to the heart of the issue, which is that we need to have openness and transparency about who owns what company and where, and who owns what trust. There is a very simple action that the Government could take without any legislation, and that would immediately slice through a lot of the problems that we have seen in the Paradise papers, the Panama papers, the Falciani leaks and the Luxembourg leaks. Why will the Government not insist now that our overseas territories—our tax havens—have public registers of beneficial ownership?
Mel Stride
As the right hon. Lady knows, there are many good reasons why, for perfectly honest and decent purposes, individuals use trusts. She also knows that we have made a great deal of progress on the common reporting standard across 100 different countries, including those to which she alludes. We are also bringing forward the registers of beneficial ownership across those jurisdictions so that HMRC has the information that it requires.