Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: HM Treasury

Oral Answers to Questions

Catherine West Excerpts
Tuesday 18th July 2017

(6 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Andrew Jones Portrait Andrew Jones
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The support for solar comes directly from people’s bills. When the costs of installation and generation come down, through efficiencies and economies of scale and production, so should support. We are taking steps to control the cost of support schemes and putting solar on the path to delivery without subsidy.

Catherine West Portrait Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
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11. What plans he has to introduce measures to tackle tax avoidance and evasion carried out through non-domiciled status and offshore trusts.

Mel Stride Portrait The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mel Stride)
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The UK has effective legislation to tackle avoidance involving offshore structures and we have announced our intention to legislate further, making it harder for non-doms to avoid paying tax on funds withdrawn from trusts. I am also pleased to say that we have been at the forefront of international work that has seen 100 countries commit to exchange financial information automatically.

Catherine West Portrait Catherine West
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The Conservative manifesto said that the Government would

“take a more proactive approach to transparency”.

Does the Minister believe that enough is being done to tackle companies that promote tax-avoidance schemes, or is there still a tendency for the big four accountancy firms to regulate the big four, via the big four, in order to protect the big four?

Mel Stride Portrait Mel Stride
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The hon. Lady asks if enough is being done to clamp down on tax avoidance. I can assure her that it certainly is. Since 2010, we have raised £160 billion by way of clamping down on exactly those behaviours. In the forthcoming Finance Bill there will be further measures to make sure that over the scorecard period we are bringing in between £7 billion and £8 billion in addition, in corporate tax avoidance measures.