Dan Rogerson
Main Page: Dan Rogerson (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)Department Debates - View all Dan Rogerson's debates with the HM Treasury
The Economy
Dan Rogerson Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Danny Alexander
The hon. Lady will know that HMRC has had to make efficiency savings along with the rest of the Government. It had to make savings when the Labour party was in office and it continues to have to do that. We have increased investment specifically in the part of HMRC focused on tackling tax avoidance and evasion—an area that saw underinvestment during Labour’s time in office. As a result, 2,000 extra specialist tax inspectors—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury brings me up to date and tells me that the figure is 2,500. Those inspectors are specifically focused on tackling tax avoidance in the affluence unit and those units that focus on offshore companies and all other tax avoidance schemes, and on implementing the anti-avoidance rule.
Dan Rogerson
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, not least for his response to Cornwall’s call for investment in the A30 infrastructure project and his earlier kind words. Does he recall that when in opposition we had to watch the then Labour Government cutting and closing HMRC offices in a lot of regions around the country, and putting on the scrap heap a lot of skilled tax inspectors, the benefit of whose experience we sadly no longer have?
Danny Alexander
As always, my hon. Friend makes a good point. We need people with experience in compliance and enforcement, and we are expanding employment in those areas. That is the right thing to do and it should have been done a long time ago.
The previous Government set out plans to increase fuel duty above inflation last year, this year and again in 2013 and 2014. However, as a result of repeated action by this Government, pump prices will remain at least 10p per litre lower for the remainder of this Parliament than they would have been had the Labour party remained in government.