Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Peru) Order 2025 Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Romania) Order 2025 Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Andorra) Order 2025 Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Portuguese Republic)) Order 2025

Gareth Davies Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2025 General Committees

[Gareth Davies (Grantham and Bourne) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, as always, Sir Desmond. It is also a pleasure to serve on this Committee on behalf of His Majesty’s official Opposition and to see the Minister in his place for the first time in a Delegated Legislation Committee. I wish him luck for this one and the many more to come—Ministers spend a lot of time in DLCs, as he will come to realise.

As the Minister pointed out, the orders before the Committee give effect to the double taxation conventions negotiated and updated with Andorra, Peru, Portugal and Romania. DTCs prevent the double taxation—as the Minister was saying—of income or gains from cross-border activity, combat tax avoidance through the concealing of assets offshore, and promote trade and investment between the signatories.

I understand that these agreements are based on OECD and G20 recommended standards on base erosion and profit shifting to create international rules to protect against tax avoidance. Negotiating and updating such agreements are fairly routine; the previous Government negotiated literally dozens of new DTCs between 2010 and 2024. It is one of the regular ongoing duties of the Government and Treasury Ministers, and I am therefore pleased to see these agreements come into force today.

These orders give effect to new agreements with Andorra and Peru, as well as updating and replacing existing agreements with Romania and Portugal from 1977 and 1969, respectively. These agreements cover double taxation with regard to capital gains tax, corporation tax and income tax, as well as those taxes of a similar nature in Andorra, Peru, Portugal and Romania.

Historically, these agreements have passed through the House with little disagreement. The Minister will be pleased to know that I will not be breaking precedent today. However, I have two little questions for him, which I am sure he will find incredibly straightforward—and if not, the answer will be in his pack. First, can the Minister provide an estimate of the net impact to the Exchequer in terms of tax revenue as a result of these measures directly?

As they say in Peru, it takes two to tango. Therefore can he update the House on the ratification process of these orders in the Parliaments of Andorra, Peru, Portugal and Romania? It is a pretty straightforward question because obviously we need both Parliaments to enact these measures. Can the Minister clarify what the process is, and whether the ratification process in those countries is running in conjunction with the passage of the draft orders in this House?