Jeremy Corbyn MP, Leader of the Labour Party, responding to David Cameron in the House of Commons today, said:

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 “Thank you Mr Speaker, and may I thank the Prime Minister for advanced sight of his statement. It is a master class in the art of distraction.

 “I’m sure the Prime Minister will join me in welcoming the outstanding journalism that has gone into exposing the scandal of destructive global tax avoidance revealed by the leak of the Panama Papers?

 “What they have driven home is what many people have increasingly felt, that there is now one rule for the super-rich, and another for the rest of us.

 “I am not sure the Prime Minister fully appreciates the anger that is out there, over this injustice. How can it be right that street cleaners, teaching assistants and nurses work and pay their taxes – yet some at the top think the rules don’t apply to them?

 “What has been revealed in the past week  goes far beyond what the Prime Minister has called his “private matters”. But there are six questions which he needs to answer today, to the House and the public.

 “The first is why he chose not to declare his offshore tax haven investment in the House of Commons Register of Members’ Interests?

“There is a requirement ‘to provide information of any pecuniary interest’ which ‘might reasonably be thought… to influence his or her actions’.

“The Prime Minister said he thinks he ‘mishandled’ the events of the past week. Does he now realise he also ‘mishandled’ his own non-declaration six years ago when he decided not to register an offshore tax haven investment from which he personally benefited?

 “And second, can he clarify to the House and the public whether when he sold his stake in Blairmore Holdings in 2010 he also disposed of other offshore investments at that time. In particular, whether any of the £72,000 of shares he sold that year were held in offshore tax havens?

 “Mr Speaker, the Ministerial Code states that ‘Ministers must ensure that no conflict arises, or could reasonably be perceived to arise, between their public duties and their private interests, financial or otherwise’. And that all Ministers, must provide a full list of ‘all interests which might be thought to give rise to a conflict’ including ‘close family’ interests.

 “So did the Prime Minister provide the Permanent Secretary with an account of his offshore interests?

“And if not, didn’t he realise that he had a clear obligation to do so when part of his personal wealth was tied up in offshore tax havens and he was now making policy decisions that had a direct bearing on their operation?

 “In 2013, the Prime Minister wrote to the President of the European Council opposing central public registries of beneficial ownership for offshore trusts.

 “So third, does the Prime Minister now accept that transparency of beneficial ownership must be extended to offshore trusts?

 “The Panama-based law firm, Mossack Fonseca, registered more than 100,000 secret firms to the British Virgin Islands.

 “Mr Speaker, it is a scandal that UK overseas territories registered over half the shell companies set up by Mossack Fonseca. The truth is that the UK is at the heart of the global tax avoidance industry and that national scandal must end.

 “Last year the Conservative government opposed EU Tax Commissioner Pierre Moscovici’s blacklist of 30 uncooperative tax havens. The blacklist included the Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands.

 “So my fourth question is will the Prime Minister now stop blocking European Commission plans for a blacklist of tax havens?

 “It turns out that Lord Blencathra, the former Conservative Home Office Minister, was absolutely right when he wrote to the Cayman Islands government in 2014 to reassure them that our Prime Minister was making a ‘purely political gesture’ about cracking down on tax havens at the G8.

 “It was designed, he said – and I quote – to be ‘a false initiative … which will divert other member states from pursuing their agenda’.

 “Last June, Treasury officials lobbied Brussels not to take action against Bermuda’s tax secrecy.

 “According to the EU’s transparency register the tech giant Google has no fewer than 10 employees lobbying Brussels Bermuda is the tax haven favoured by Google to channel billions in profits.

 “And Conservative MEPs have been instructed on six occasions since the beginning of last year to vote against action to clamp down on aggressive tax avoidance. This is a party incapable of taking serious, internationally co-ordinated action to tackle tax dodging.

 “Across the country, and on this side of the Chamber there is a thirst for decisive action against the global tax avoidance scams that suck tax revenues out of our public services and leave ordinary taxpayers to foot the bill. It undermines public trust in business, politics and public life. It can and must be brought to an end.

 “The Prime Minister’s announcement today about new measures to make companies liable for employees who facilitate tax cheating is welcome,  but it’s also too little, too late. In fact it was announced by the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury over a year ago.

 “People want a government that acts on behalf of those who pay their taxes, not those who dodge their taxes in offshore tax havens.

 “Yesterday, my hon Friend the Shadow Chancellor set out a clear plan for tax transparency –

 “It included calling for an immediate public inquiry into the Panama Papers revelation, to establish the harm done to the UK’s tax revenues, and bring forward serious proposals for reform.

“I gently say to the Prime Minister that a tax taskforce reporting to the Chancellor and Home Secretary, both members of a party funded by donors implicated in the Panama leaks, will neither be seen as independent nor credible.

 “So, fifth will the Prime Minister back a credible and independent public inquiry into the abuses uncovered by the Panama leaks?

 “Our tax transparency plan also called for a Specialised Tax Enforcement Unit in a properly resourced HMRC.

 “Mr Speaker, since 2010 there have only been 11 prosecutions over offshore tax evasion, a situation the Public Accounts Committee described as ‘woefully inadequate’.

 “So, sixth and finally  – having slashed resources and cut 14,000 staff since 2010,  will the Prime Minister today guarantee that resourcing to HM Revenue & Customs will increase in this Parliament?

 “Mr Speaker, the Opposition will support real action to end the abuses that allow the wealthy to dodge the rules that the rest of us have to follow.

 “We need to ensure that trust and fairness are restored to our tax system and our politics and end the sense, and the reality, that there is one rule for the richest and another for everybody else.

 “The Prime Minister has attacked tax dodging as immoral but he clearly failed to give a full account of his own involvement in offshore tax havens, or take the essential action to clean up the system, while blocking wider efforts to do so.

 “There are clear steps that can be taken to bring tax havens and tax dodging under control, but the Prime Minister’s record shows the Prime Minister no longer has the public trust to take them.

 “Doesn’t the prime minister realise why people are so angry?

 “We’ve gone through six years of crushing austerity  in which families have had to line up at food banks to feed their children, disabled people have lost benefits, elderly care has been slashed and living standards have been cut.

 “Much of this could have been avoided if our country hadn’t been ripped off by the super-rich refusing to pay their taxes.

 “And I say to the Prime Minister, our country won’t stand for it anymore.”