Panama Papers

Richard Drax Excerpts

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The reason why I made that statement in 2013 was that we had got the Crown dependencies and the overseas territories, for the first time, to share automatically tax information with the United Kingdom Government. That is something that did not happen under the last Labour Government. It is something that we achieved. It was a different approach. Now—the hon. Gentleman is right—we want to go further, and the announcement today set out that not only will they share that information and follow the common reporting standard, but they will give us access to their information about beneficial ownership.

Just so the hon. Gentleman knows how different things were under the last Government, the then Financial Secretary to the Treasury, in response to questions about the overseas territories, said this:

“The negotiation of tax information exchange agreements with other jurisdictions, including the UK, is essentially a matter for the Crown Dependencies themselves.”—[Official Report, 19 May 2009; Vol. 492, c. 1370W.]

He was saying, “Nothing to do with me, guv; it’s up to them.” That is the Government that we replaced. We took a different approach, and we have made a lot of progress.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

Forgive my lack of voice. May I say that I totally understand the Prime Minister’s predicament and his instinct to protect his father? I would have done exactly the same. His father did nothing wrong whatsoever.

The Prime Minister mentioned the long and thoughtful debate that is to come. May I say most gently that, when public figures get into trouble, there should be no more knee-jerk reactions, and that a long and thoughtful debate should be had to avoid unnecessary consequences for everybody else?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for his support. He makes an important point, which is that we should try to make decisions about these things calmly and rationally after debate. I felt, after all the questions that I was being asked, that the right thing to do was to publish the information, but I could not have made it clearer today that I do not want to see that as some precedent that every Member of this House, or indeed every member of my Cabinet, has to follow. We should think very carefully. We have always had a system in this country based on full disclosure to the Revenue but taxpayer confidentiality. Some other countries have complete publication of all tax returns and all tax information. That has not been our way. We have had a different system, and I do not think that we should give it up lightly.