Seema Malhotra MP, Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, responding to the revelation that Tory MEPs have voted against a European Parliament proposal calling for companies to publish where they pay their taxes, just two weeks after George Osborne said he was in favour of it, said:

“Once again the Tories have shown that on tax avoidance and evasion they say one thing and do another. Today, if two Tory MEPs had voted for an amendment to a European Parliament report, put forward by Anneliese Dodds and other Labour MEPs, which called for a ‘move towards public country-by-country reporting’, it would have passed. Instead they voted against it and the vote was lost 29-26.

“George Osborne and David Cameron need to explain why Conservative MEPs are supporting companies who don’t want to provide full information about where they earn their money and pay their tax. Millions of British people and businesses pay their fair share of taxes and those multinational companies who play the system to try and avoid doing the same have to be stopped.

“Labour will be bring forward measures this summer to amend the Finance Bill that will be going through Parliament to clamp down on tax dodging. The test for Osborne and Cameron is whether they will support these measures and also bring their MEPs into line.”