Stewart Hosie
Main Page: Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party - Dundee East)Department Debates - View all Stewart Hosie's debates with the HM Treasury
(11 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sajid Javid
Not yet.
The hon. Lady does not want me to tell the House what the Labour Government did when they looked at this tax loophole. They declared:
“The Government has considered all the consultation responses and believes that on balance the negative effects of changing existing legislation outweigh the benefits"
To address just this issue, this Government have already strengthened HMRC's enforcement and compliance teams, and protected tens of millions of pounds of revenue. So the nub of today's debate is a call to clamp down on avoidance of a relief that the Opposition declared they could do nothing about, to pay for a cut in fuel duty that they supported. Mr Deputy Speaker, you couldn't make it up.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
The Minister said he wanted to talk about tax avoidance, so let us talk about it. Why did the Chief Secretary to the Treasury promise at his party’s conference last year thousands of extra tax inspectors, and why have the Government failed to deliver any of them?
Sajid Javid
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question; I will come on to it.