Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the role of free ports in tackling global tax avoidance and evasion.

Free Trade Zones and ports play a clear role in facilitating legitimate international trade, but where there is lax oversight or weak governance they are susceptible to abuse by transnational criminal networks. Under the joint leadership of HMRC and the US Department of Homeland Security, the OECD Countering Illicit Trade Taskforce has made significant progress in developing draft guidance on measures to enhance the transparency of Free Trade Zones, so as to promote clean and fair trade and to make them unattractive to people and organisations looking to conduct tax evasion and commit crime.