Oral Answers to Questions

Owen Thompson Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

I thank the hon. Lady for that question. I will ensure that she gets a reply, which she deserves, because this is a deeply distressing issue and the Government take it very seriously indeed. I do not believe it is appropriate to use the Contingencies Fund in this particular case. She will know that the consultation on the reform of financial support to those affected closed on 15 April, and we will be replying in due course. Meanwhile, the Department of Health has identified additional money—£100 million from its budget—for these purposes. This is in addition to the £22.5 million that it spends on this annually, as well as the further £25 million announced in March 2015. These steps will more than double the support.

[Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)]

14. What steps he is taking to improve tax transparency.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

The Government have played a leading role in driving forward international action on tax transparency. The introduction of country-by-country reporting has increased the transparency between multinationals and tax authorities, and we are pushing for this to be made public on a multilateral basis. We led the way throughout the development of the common reporting standard, which will see more than 100 countries automatically exchange information on financial accounts, and on a similar initiative for the automatic exchange of beneficial ownership information. We have consistently advocated for public registers of beneficial ownership, with the UK’s going live as of this month.

[Owen Thompson]

The planned closure of 137 HMRC offices has clearly been affecting employees, their families and communities. What steps has the Minister taken to look into introducing a moratorium on these closures, to support the wider work of improving tax transparency?

[Mr Gauke]

I commend the hon. Gentleman’s ingenious ability to raise this issue. It is important that HMRC’s funds are spent efficiently, to ensure that they are spent on delivering the tax being collected that we want, rather than on buildings. The savings from buildings are being spent on collecting more tax.