Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, under what conditions the Government was provided with files related to HSBC and tax evasion.

Information provided to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) by the French tax authorities in respect of individuals indicated to hold accounts at the Geneva branch of HSBC Suisse and understood to be UK residents was supplied to HMRC under the terms of both the Mutual Assistance Directive 77/799/EEC and the Double Taxation Convention in force between France and the United Kingdom at that time:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:31977L0799

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/taxtreaties/in-force/france.pdf

The Mutual Assistance Directive had been in force since 23 December 1977. The Double Taxation Convention has been in force since 18 December 2009, replacing an earlier convention which had been in force since 1969.

Since their entry into force each of these agreements has been a matter of public record.

It is the responsibility of HMRC to determine the appropriate nature and scope of any response to information received under the provisions of a relevant double taxation convention.

Ministers are not made aware of individual cases due to taxpayer confidentiality. At no point were ministers made aware by HMRC of any suggestion of wrong doing by HSBC itself.

On receipt of the data referred to, a project team was immediately established, led by the then Directors of Risk & Intelligence Service, Criminal Investigations and Specialist Investigations. The then Director—General was the senior responsible officer for the governance of the project.

The data was cleansed, reducing the 6,800 entities referred to in the data to around 3,600 identified individuals with a potential UK connection. Further analysis confirmed that over 3,100 of these individuals could be traced. Following risk assessment, HMRC adopted a range of approaches to ensure that all of those individuals were appropriately challenged over their UK tax compliance. More than £135 million has been recovered to date.

The purpose of the UK Swiss tax cooperation agreement is to secure the UK tax compliance of those UK residents holding accounts in Switzerland, through a combination of tax deductions at source and the release of detailed account information.

The groundbreaking agreement introduced by this Government has secured over £1.2 billion, with more to come. This is money coming in to the UK exchequer from a jurisdiction previously beyond our reach and clearly demonstrates how this Government have supported HMRC’s determined approach in tackling tax evasion.

This deal has secured £1.2bn in tax for the Exchequer that we would not have otherwise received. The declaration does not prevent anyone from providing information to HMRC voluntarily or via a third party, and would not have prevented HMRC from receiving the data from Mr Falciani or any other whistleblower.