I agree that we need a public form of country-by-country reporting. In government, we would seek an international agreement, if possible, on public forms of such reporting. At present, the agreement arising from the base erosion and profit-shifting process is to make country-by-country reporting available to tax authorities, but we believe that there is a strong case for the information to be made public. We will seek a multilateral agreement, but if that is not possible, we will discuss with business in this country the best way to introduce a public country-by-country reporting format on a unilateral basis.
As I have said, we will take further action to stop umbrella companies from exploiting tax relief, and to force the United Kingdom’s overseas territories and Crown dependencies to produce publicly available registers of beneficial ownership. [Interruption.] The Minister again chunters from a sedentary position. I note that there was no chuntering from him when it came to his record and the decisions that he made about Stephen Green, but he has suddenly come back to life. He says from a sedentary position, “How?” I say to him that the Prime Minister himself said this was a vitally important policy, which was desperately needed in order to open up the secrecy associated with the overseas territories and the Crown dependencies.
The Prime Minister has been writing increasingly shirty letters to the Crown dependencies and overseas territories, saying that they need to move forward with a publicly available register of beneficial ownership, and nothing has happened. Actually, since my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition made his announcement at the weekend that we would seek a blacklisting of overseas territories and Crown dependencies if there was no movement on a public register of beneficial ownership within six months of the next Labour Government, today Gibraltar, for example, has said it will take very seriously our call for a public register. I think that turning up the heat on this issue and being serious about action can gain a lot more than the Government’s approach thus far.
As I said in response to the intervention by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), we will make country-by-country reporting information publicly available. We will tackle the use of dormant companies to avoid tax by requiring them to report more frequently, and we will ensure stronger, independent scrutiny of the tax system, including reliefs, and the Government’s efforts to tackle tax avoidance.
The problem of tax avoidance and tax evasion is not new. For as long as the state has been levying tax, people have tried to avoid it—a fact that, rightly and understandably, is resented by those who do pay what they owe. Members on the Government Benches have failed to understand that those levels of resentment, frustration and mistrust have risen to critical levels. This is a problem that requires a new level of determination to fix. The problem corrodes the central tenet of the contract between the Government and their people. It is simply not okay to have one set of rules for those who have enough money to require a Swiss bank account and another set for those who do not, one set of rules for those with armies of accountants and another set for those who do not, and one set of rules for those who are well connected and another for those who are not. The Government have failed to rise to the enormity of
the challenge; the motion I speak in favour of this evening shows how the next Labour Government will do so.
5.12 pm