Tax Avoidance

Debate between Mark Lazarowicz and Robert Neill

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), whose contribution, as always, was thoughtful. I did not agree with every word, but I sympathised with much of it, and it was in marked contrast to the Opposition’s “Alice in Wonderland” approach to history and policy. Theirs is a topsy-turvy view of recent history that ignores their repeated failure over 13 years to do anything about tax transparency and efficiency, and ignores the work of this coalition Government—but perhaps we should not expect anything more.

Even worse is the Opposition’s remarkably cavalier attitude not just to the facts—I will come to that in a moment—but to the UK financial services industry. We ought to remember that it employs more than 1 million people. I represent a constituency in Greater London. Some 340,000 people in Greater London alone are employed in the financial services sector. It is a world leader for the UK, and the dismissive and scornful attitude shown by some Labour Members to this vital contributor to the tax revenues that fund our public services is pretty shameful.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

I also represent a constituency to which financial services are important, but should we not be defending and promoting the UK financial services industry, rather than those in offshore havens across the world?

[Robert Neill]

I am glad the hon. Gentleman raised that point. He and I agree about the importance of financial services, but ironically, the blunderbuss approach taken by the Leader of the Opposition in his extraordinarily inept intervention in relation to the Crown dependencies and overseas territories is a perfect example of the cavalier approach that we have seen from the Opposition. I noticed that the shadow Minister mentioned it only briefly towards the end of her speech, as if some kind of major triumph had been achieved by this statesmanlike international figure, the Leader of the Opposition. I might just dissect that a little in a moment. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) wants to intervene, I will give way.