Commenting on reports HSBC ‘helped clients dodge millions in tax’, shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury Cathy Jamieson MP said:

“HMRC were made fully aware of these practices back in 2010. There are serious questions for the Chancellor to answer about why just one person out of over a thousand have been prosecuted in five years. And why the Government’s Swiss tax deal has been such an embarrassing flop, raising a fraction of the amounts initially boasted of by ministers.”

"Tax avoidance and evasion harms every taxpayer in Britain, and undermines public services like the NHS.

“The Chancellor also needs to urgently explain how the then chairman of HSBC, Stephen Green, could have been appointed a Conservative peer and a Minister by David Cameron just eight months after the Government was made aware of these activities taking place on his watch at HSBC.

"Once again the Tories have been exposed as unable and unwilling to take real action on tax avoidance – little wonder that under them the tax gap has risen year on year.”