Panama Papers

Rachel Reeves Excerpts

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. and learned Friend has much expertise in this area. I think the point he is making is that as we set out these economic crimes—the Home Secretary has led the charge to ensure that we address this issue properly—we make sure that they are properly publicised, properly understood and then properly prosecuted. We need to make sure that the National Crime Agency and the Serious Fraud Office work together in the way that I know he was keen to see when he was doing that job.

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister says that he is leading on international efforts to crack down on tax evasion, so can he explain why he wrote to the then European Council President Herman Van Rompuy in 2013 and asked him to water down the impact of EU transparency rules by treating trusts differently from companies in anti-money laundering rules, despite warnings that such a move could create loopholes for tax dodgers?

[The Prime Minister]

With great respect to the hon. Lady, I have answered that question several times, most recently to the leader of the Green party. We were keen to get progress on the beneficial ownership of companies, and if we had accepted proposals to include trusts, that would have got completely bogged down and would not have made nearly the progress that we have made. We have got every G7 country and most G20 countries signing up to having action plans on beneficial ownership of companies. If we did that with trusts, my advice was that the whole thing would have slowed down to a trickle and we would not have got all the international co-operation and all the extra money that we are going to raise.