Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what progress he has made in reducing levels of tax avoidance in the UK's Overseas Territories.

The UK Government is at the forefront of the global response to international aggressive tax planning and cross-border evasion, driving the international tax, transparency and trade agenda forward under the UK's G8 presidency in 2013, and fully backing the OECD's Base Erosion and Profit Shifting project.

Under the Prime Minister's leadership of the G8, the UK has led a global leap forward in international tax transparency, meaning there are fewer places to hide. We are imposing tough new sanctions for those who do not come forward under HM Revenue and Customs' (HMRC) offshore disclosure facilities. There will be serious consequences for those who continue to believe they can hide wealth offshore, when later on this year HMRC will consult on a new strict liability criminal offence that could mean jail for those who do not declare taxable offshore income. HMRC will also consult on tougher civil sanctions. In addition, last year the Government entered into a series of Intergovernmental Agreements with the overseas territories which will ensure that from September 2016 HMRC will receive details of UK residents who have bank accounts and other investments in the overseas territories.

HMRC co-operates with tax authorities in other countries, in areas such as exchange of information and recovery of tax. Following the commitments made at the G8, all of the UK's Overseas Territories with financial centres and the Crown Dependencies have taken significant steps forward on tax transparency putting them at the forefront of this agenda globally. In addition to signing agreements with the UK for the automatic exchange of tax information, they have also agreed to be early adopters of the new global standard for automatic exchange of tax information, committing to an ambitious timetable of implementation as members of a group of 44 countries and jurisdictions.