Panama Papers

Debate between Margaret Hodge and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What my right hon. Friend will remember from his time in government—he is doing a brilliant job as my anti-corruption lead—was that we got the Crown dependencies and the overseas territories around the table in the Cabinet room, on the same day as the trooping of the Colour, I believe, and said, “We have to make these changes. You don’t have to go all the way to publishing registers, although that is what we would like, but you have got to make this information available.” As he says, that will mean not only more tax paid, but greater ability to uncover corruption.

[Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

May I ask the Prime Minister some questions about his welcome announcement on Crown dependencies? First, have the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands agreed to compile a register of beneficial ownership? Secondly, will HMRC have access to that register? Thirdly, if he does not succeed in getting those territories to publicly publish those registers, will he use his powers, through the Privy Council, to order the tax havens to publish them?

[The Prime Minister]

Basically, we have been asking the Crown dependencies to do three things: one is to exchange tax information, the second is to have a common reporting standard, and the third is to establish registers of beneficial ownership. They have now done all three, so the answer to the right hon. Lady’s first question—have they agreed?—is yes. We still need agreement from Guernsey and from Anguilla, but we hope that that will come in the coming days. The answer to her second question—will our Revenue have access to their register?—is yes, it will. The answer to her third question—will we force them to have public registers?—is we think they should; we think that that is the right way to go. But let us be clear: very few countries in the world—I think Spain, Britain and possibly one or two others—have public registers of beneficial ownership. Our Crown dependencies and overseas territories will now be far in advance of most other countries, so instead of attacking them, we ought to praise them and thank them for what they have done.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Margaret Hodge and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. I think I can answer positively on all the points she made. At the Perth Commonwealth conference, I chaired a meeting of the Prime Ministers of all the different realms and we agreed we should bring forward legislation to deal with this issue. All the realms have now agreed to do that. We will introduce legislation into this House very shortly. It will write down in law what we agreed back in 2011: that if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s first child is a girl, she can one day be our Queen. That is the key point. But it is important to explain that the changes will apply to a child born after the date of the Perth announcement of last year even if the birth is before the legislation is passed. I hope it will not take long—certainly not nine months—to pass this legislation, but, just in case, there would not be a problem.

[Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

Q9. I welcome the Government’s commitment to increasing their efforts to tackle tax avoidance. Starbucks has now caved in to public pressure and announced that it will review its tax arrangements in the UK, so naming and shaming clearly works. Surely it is time to stop companies engaged in tax avoidance hiding behind taxpayer confidentiality. Will the Prime Minister now commit to publishing the names of the companies found by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to have avoided paying their fair share of tax?

[The Prime Minister]

I very much welcome the right hon. Lady’s initiative on this and her Committee’s work, and I thank her for her warm words of support for what the Government have done thus far. We have recovered £29 billion of additional revenues from large businesses in the last six years, including £4 billion in the last four years from transfer pricing inquiries alone, which is one of the issues the press has covered in detail. I am certainly committed to doing everything we can to look at all the options to make sure that companies pay their taxes properly, and I agree with what the right hon. Lady said about public, and even some political, pressure. On some occasions I myself have made one or two remarks on this subject that were seen as rather controversial. It is important that people feel that companies meet their responsibilities and pay their taxes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Margaret Hodge and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 24th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I can certainly give my hon. Friend that assurance. This area—who should pay, how much and when—has become much too complicated, so I have asked that Ministers get together to simplify it. My hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration is going to be leading this process, and I hope we can come up with a simplified system in which the public will have real trust.

[Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

Q10. Jimmy Carr avoided £3.3 million of tax last year, and the Prime Minister said that was morally wrong. Apple, Google, Facebook, eBay and Starbucks have between them avoided nearly £900 million of tax. Will the Prime Minister now take this opportunity to condemn their behaviour as morally wrong?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Lady makes an important point. This is an international problem that all countries are struggling with: how to make sure that companies pay tax in an appropriate way. I am not happy with the current situation; Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs needs to look at it very carefully. We need to make sure that we are encouraging these businesses to invest in our country—as they are doing—but they should be paying fair taxes as well.

Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)

Debate between Margaret Hodge and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 30th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

First, I very much agree with what my right hon. Friend says about the opportunity provided for the Leveson inquiry. I think we should be frank: the relationships between the media and the police, and between the media and politicians, and some of the ethics and problems in the media, have not been dealt with properly under Governments both Labour and Conservative, and this gives us an opportunity to deal with the matter. On the specific issue of the Secretary of State, what is more robust than a judge-led inquiry, with Ministers under oath—holding the Bible, speaking under oath and answering questions? That is the point on which we have heard absolutely no answer from the Labour party.

[Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

On Wednesday, the Secretary of State told this House that the permanent secretary had “agreed”, “authorised” and “approved” the role of Adam Smith. On Thursday, the permanent secretary refused 10 times to confirm to my Committee that that was the case. On Friday, he then wrote to me stating merely that he was “aware and content” with Adam Smith’s role. Either the Secretary of State failed to provide full and accurate information to Parliament or he failed to require his civil servant to provide full and accurate information to a Select Committee of Parliament. Both are breaches of the ministerial code—[Interruption.]

[Margaret Hodge]

Both are breaches of the ministerial code, both ride roughshod over the rights of Parliament and surely both need to be properly investigated by the independent adviser.

[The Prime Minister]

I did watch some of the permanent secretary’s appearance in front of the right hon. Lady’s Committee, when he thought he was going to be discussing the Olympic Games. What he said, over and over again, was that he backed what his Secretary of State had said at this Dispatch Box. When asked to clarify it, he made it absolutely clear that he agreed the arrangements within the Department, as I said in my statement, and he was aware of and content with the role of the special adviser. I know that the right hon. Lady sometimes allows her Committee to drift into these areas, but I am afraid that she is completely wrong.

EU Council

Debate between Margaret Hodge and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me repeat again to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that I do believe that it is in Britain’s interest to be in the European Union and to be active, especially on those dossiers where that is in our interest—chief among which is the single market. If we want to see what will make a difference to the single currency and the success of the eurozone, nothing matters more than competitiveness, where Britain should be very active, with others both in the eurozone and outside, to drive forward changes. We are fully committed to keeping up that work.

[Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

Any politician with experience of doing business in Europe knows that you never go to a key European meeting without having done extensive and thorough preparatory work, so that as you walk in you are pretty much sure of the outcome you will get. Either the Prime Minister did not bother to do the preparatory work, and betrayed Britain’s long-term interests through sheer incompetence, or he had made up his mind before to use the veto because he was afraid of his own Back Benchers. Which of those two was it?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me say to the right hon. Lady that I went to Brussels wanting a result at 27, but there were safeguards that I believed that Britain needed. Frankly, you can have all the experience of negotiating in the world, but if you are not prepared to say no from time to time, you do not have any influence or power.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Margaret Hodge and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The point about the inquiry that we are shortly going to discuss is that it will look at the relationship between politicians and media groups, across the whole issue of that relationship including as it relates to media policy. I think that is extremely important. The inquiry will have the ability to call politicians—serving politicians and previous Prime Ministers—to get to the bottom of what happened and how unhealthy the relationship was. That is what needs to happen.

[Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

On Monday, the MOD permanent secretary told the Public Accounts Committee that the Prime Minister himself blocked the National Audit Office from accessing relevant National Security Council documents. The auditors considered them essential to assess whether the decisions on the aircraft carrier in the defence review represented value for money. That refusal is unprecedented. In the interests of full transparency and accountability to Parliament, will the Prime Minister now agree to immediately release the information that the NAO needs?

[The Prime Minister]

The short answer is that we were following precedent, but the long answer is that if the right hon. Lady wants me to come to her Committee and explain what an appalling set of decisions the last Government made on aircraft carriers, I will. The delay alone by the Government whom she worked for added £1.6 billion to the cost of the aircraft carriers. So if she wants me to turn up and not just tell her what we discussed in Cabinet but lay out the full detail of the waste that her Government were responsible for, name the day.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Margaret Hodge and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right, and I know that a lot of argument and discussion is going on about regional development agencies. The figures about how much money has been wasted, however, should be more widely shared. The East Midlands Development Agency paid more than £300,000 for offices in north America. The Northwest Development Agency shared an office in Newport Beach. One NorthEast spent money on offices in China, Japan, Korea and Australia. The chairman of the South East England Development Agency spent £51,000 on taxis and executive cars in one year alone. We need proper control of costs and spending—there has not been any for the past 13 years, and there sure is going to be under this Government.

[Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

May I tell the Prime Minister about my constituent, Nikki Blunden, who is 37, has a son aged four and is dying of cancer. Her consultant wants to prescribe the new drug Lapatinib, which could prolong her life. Last week, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence deemed the treatment not to be cost-effective. Will the Prime Minister stick to his promise not to hide behind NICE, and ensure that the primary care trust funds forthwith this NHS treatment? Nikki Blunden cannot wait; I ask the Prime Minister to act.

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for asking that question. My heart goes out to her constituent, Nikki Blunden. We want to see these cancer drugs get to patients more quickly, without the bureaucratic wheels taking so long to turn. That is why we are establishing the cancer drugs fund, and I will discuss with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health how quickly that can be done. If possible, I want it to be done this year rather than next year. If it can be done, it will be, and if drugs can be got to people like the right hon. Lady’s constituent—we all have constituents in such a position—I will do everything that I can to make that happen.