Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
William Arthur Roger Mullin (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): This Bill follows in the wake of yet another Budget that began to fall apart within a few short hours of the Chancellor’s statement—indeed, perhaps his future statements should be entitled, "Not the Budget". If the Budget created disarray on the Government Benches, this Bill, with its clamjamfry of unco-ordinated clauses, presages yet more failure and demonstrably fails to address some of the major economic challenges of our time I admit that it was a great joy to read all 580 pages of the Finance Bill over the recess, and although I will come to a number of specific issues and technical problems, the Scottish National party has one overriding message for the Government: you cannot build economic success on the back of social injustice. Every social injustice is a hammer blow to economic progress. In recent times, we have seen the ways in which this Government wanted to place further injustice on the shoulders of the disabled, the disadvantaged and the 1950s-born women while at the same time operating an economic system that disproportionately protects and enhances the privileges of the most wealthy in society. Creating such division does not bring progress I said in my maiden speech, quoting Adam Smith: "No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable." Times move on, of course, and reflections on our current predicament can best be summed up by Professor Stiglitz, who said: "Rather than justice for all, we are evolving into a system of justice for those who can afford it" I am confident that hon. Members will be able to rehearse many instances of social injustice created by this Government, so allow me to move on and reflect on an issue that I raised in the House on 3 February this year—namely, the problem of tax evasion, particularly through the use of tax havens in British overseas territories. Little did I know at the time how prescient that debate in February would prove to be I have to say how disappointing I found the Prime Minister’s statement earlier today, despite its containing one or two modest proposals that I welcomed. Let us put this into context. According to Jason Hickel of the London School of Economics, tax havens hide one sixth of the world’s total private wealth—in excess of $20 trillion. I have already commented elsewhere that the revelations in the millions of papers that have been released from Mossack Fonseca are but the tip of a gigantic iceberg. Indeed, Panama does not even make it into the top 10 tax havens. Taken together, Britain and her overseas territories are at No. 1, outdoing Switzerland by some margin. Commenting on a single address in the Cayman Islands, Ugland House, President Obama said: "That’s either the biggest building in the world or the biggest tax scam on record" It is not surprising he said that, given that 19,000 businesses are registered at that one address. It is a big hoose, as I said in February At least four major issues relating to tax havens need addressing. The first—the subject of much current debate—is the extent to which the makers of laws and the guardians of the wider public interest are themselves benefiting from tax scams. This is an understandable issue of concern, but we fool ourselves if we think that that is the sole or primary issue. It does, however, have regard to openness and transparency. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) that it would be a positive and welcome move if Cabinet Members, as well as the Prime Minister, were to choose willingly to open up their tax returns to public view The second issue, which deserves more focus, is the avoidance of tax. I deliberately say "avoidance", because that is of course legal. It strikes me, however, that for the average member of the public, it is not a convincing defence for the type of institutional behaviour that we have witnessed in recent times, including from large multinational corporations, to say, "It is legal". I am sure that I am not the only new MP to have been subjected to huge lobbying by corporations and other financial bodies. They mobilise vast resources to "help" the Government and they are very successful. They have managed to influence the creation of an international system of finance that enables tax avoidance on a huge scale. Not only that, but they happily operate a system that hides from scrutiny the owners of vast wealth, while the ordinary man in the street has no such luxury The third issue, which has surprisingly been the subject of much less scrutiny so far, is the extent of the evasion of disclosure of the source of money itself. There are good reasons to suppose that it is not only corrupt political leaders but drug traffickers, terrorist organisations and other types of criminals who inhabit the shady world of international finance. Sadly, the Panama papers suggest that some legally registered institutions may have colluded in the protection of criminals who stash their cash behind anonymous, untouchable trusts and other financial vehicles. I hope we can take it from the Prime Minister’s statement today and from the Minister’s welcome remarks earlier about making it a criminal offence for some types of such "advice" to be proffered by otherwise legal institutions that we will see considerable progress on this matter The fourth issue I wish to raise is where these funds are and how they are set to work for their beneficiaries. As we know, these funds do not actually sit in Panama, the British Virgin Islands or the Cayman Islands. One of their biggest centres is, as we know, London. For example, hundreds of very expensive properties in London have been brought by unknown persons. We need transparency here, too. Some, like my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (George Kerevan), have argued that it should be illegal to own property or land in the UK where the beneficiary is unknown—a breathtakingly simple measure to address a cause of great concern All this calls for radical reform in each of those four areas, but I am sad to say that neither the Finance Bill nor the Prime Minister’s statement earlier goes nearly far enough to inspire any confidence that the matter will be adequately addressed. It is very disappointing, for example, that the Prime Minister continues to resist calls to do something about trusts. Even if he was right in his interpretation three years ago about how to proceed, this is three years later and public perceptions throughout the world have changed radically. It is time to broaden the scope of action The truth is that while this Government, through this Finance Bill, are taking feeble measures to tackle tax evasion, at the same time, in an act of social and economic injustice, they are mounting an attack on small individual contractors who serve rural communities, preventing them from having travel expense relief. These people are not tax dodgers; they are flexible workers, with both private and public clients, who are essential to many rural communities in Scotland. Yet at the same time as these people are attacked, the Government are protecting tax dodgers and millionaire Tory donors by continuing to allow huge loopholes in the system. We must get a commitment to a more open and transparent system that involves all overseas territories, trusts as well as companies, and full and independent scrutiny of the so-called Panama papers There is scope in Committee for the Government to be much more ambitious and to present new clauses for debate. They can be assured that it is certainly our intention to do that. Furthermore, the claim that this Finance Bill will adequately address other tax dodges lies in ruins, when we consider its implications for the so-called Mayfair tax loophole. We do not believe the Finance Bill makes anything like sufficient progress in its treatment of so-called carried interest, which is seen by many members of the public as another example of one rule for those with modest means and of huge favours being given to those of considerable wealth and income. Again, this is an area we shall pursue in Committee I turn now to wider economic matters. In his 2012 Budget speech, the Chancellor acknowledged Britain’s falling share of world exports and stated that "we want to double our nation’s exports to £1 trillion this decade."—[Official Report, 21 March 2012; Vol. 542, c. 797.] Jings, he can certainly dream can oor George! However, the figures are moving in the wrong direction, and the Chancellor is likely to fall short of his target for £1 trillion in exports by 2020 by at least some £300 billion.