Lloyd Hatton

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) for securing this timely debate. It is timely for two simple reasons. Just yesterday, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism revealed that HMRC is apparently refusing to publish its official estimate of how much tax is currently being lost due to tax dodging facilitated by tax havens. The Public Accounts Committee, on which I sit, found in July that HMRC simply is not able to track down those individuals who stash their fortunes offshore in tax havens including overseas territories. The Committee has pressed for greater transparency concerning tax that is lost offshore. Without that information we will never be able to properly assess whether HMRC’s efforts are effective, or even adequately resourced. Even more crucially, without that estimate our tax authority cannot effectively pursue those who deliberately avoid or evade paying their fair share of tax. It is very simple: we should be able to assess what tax is owed and then go on to collect it. HMRC must be able to get a firmer grip on the scale of wealth that is currently stashed away offshore, and publish its findings openly. We need to bolster its ability to spot and stop tax dodging offshore by the super wealthy. That leads me to the second simple reason that this debate is timely. With the Budget fast approaching, in a time when the global economy is uncertain and dysfunctional, collecting the right amount of tax is not just a technical matter; it is about ensuring that everyone pays their fair share for the public services that we all rely upon. Holding even one billionaire to account on their tax obligations can influence the wider public purse. Unfortunately, we know that there are many individuals not paying their fair share, such as the sanctioned oligarch Roman Abramovich, who has used a British tax haven—again, the British Virgin Islands—to avoid paying almost £1 billion in tax owed to HMRC.