Tag: Paul Flynn

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2015-02-12.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, on which dates he discussed with senior officials at HM Revenue and Customs whether maximisation of recovery of unpaid tax liabilities from UK residents holding private unregistered accounts offshore should be prioritised ahead of prosecuting alleged offenders.

Mr David Gauke

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has a longstanding approach to tax evasion, which is based on collecting the tax and interest due, changing taxpayer behaviour to discourage them from evading in the future, and enforcing the most appropriate and effective penalties. This approach was set out by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2002^[1] and has not changed.

They have a range of enforcement tools at their disposal, including criminal prosecution and civil sanctions. In many cases, and when the evidence supports this, the most appropriate action is to pursue criminal charges.

HMRC therefore use the criminal route where they have the strongest evidence of criminal intent, for serial tax evaders and for people who deliberately conceal information when they are investigated by HMRC.

In 2010 this Government increased the resources available for prosecution and as a result the number of prosecutions has increased by a factor of five.

[1] http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/2002/nov/07/tax-fraud

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2015-02-11.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what discussions he has had with (a) the Crown Prosecution Service, (b) the Attorney General, (c) HM Revenue and Customs and (d) the Financial Conduct Authority on the use by UK residents of the provisions of the European Savings Directive to avoid paying UK tax by opening anonymous bank accounts in jurisdictions abroad since 1 January 2015.

Mr David Gauke

The European Savings Directive has been in force since 2005. It is a mechanism for achieving tax compliance through either disclosure of investment income data to the tax jurisdiction of the individual concerned or (in limited circumstances) applying withholding tax at source as an alternative to information disclosure.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2015-02-11.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, which HM Revenue and Customs officials saw the list of bank accounts held at the HSBC private bank in Geneva, known as the Falciani list, as passed to the Government by the French financial authorities; what evaluation was conducted of that list on its receipt; and when Ministers in his Department were first made aware of the information on that list.

Mr David Gauke

On receipt of the list HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) set up a project, called ‘Operation SOLACE’, which at its peak had around 300 tax specialists systematically examining the leaked HSBC Suisse data, to assess how it could be used to identify tax evasion and whether it provided sufficient evidence to support enforcement action against UK resident account holders.

The HSBC Suisse data initially revealed 6,800 ‘entities’ – individuals, businesses and trusts – but this contained duplication (some people had multiple accounts). Removing duplication left around 3,600 entities, all of which HMRC have examined.

HMRC have investigated and challenged more than 1,000 account holders, and collected £135 million from them in unpaid tax, interest and fines.

HMRC received the data from the French in April 2010 under very strict international treaty conditions, which limited its use to tax purposes only and prevented HMRC from sharing the data with other law enforcement authorities for investigating other potential offences.

Since 2010 we have asked the French authorities on a number of occasions for permission to use the data for purposes wider than tax collection.

The French authorities gave written confirmation on 23 February 2015 that they were lifting restrictions on the use and sharing of the data with other law enforcement agencies and regulators for the purpose of investigating criminal offences.

As a result, HMRC has recently held a multi-agency meeting to discuss how the stolen HSBC Suisse data can be shared with them.

Ministers were not made aware of any specific cases under the long standing principle of taxpayer confidentiality and HMRC operational independence.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2015-02-11.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to permit publication of data by banks in the UK on the aggregate bank holdings of residents in other jurisdictions using the structure developed by the Bank for International Settlements for banking data collection.

Mr David Gauke

UK Banks are already subject to extensive disclosure requirements which have been substantially strengthened under this Government.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2015-02-11.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what communications he has had with Mr David Hartnett, the former head of tax collection at HM Revenue and Customs, since he left that post to advise HSBC in 2014.

Mr David Gauke

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has had no communications with David Hartnett in an official capacity since his departure from HM Customs and Excise in 2012.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2015-02-11.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what discussions his Department has had with the US (a) Treasury and (b) Justice Department on HSBC’s licence to operate in the US since HSBC’s prosecution by the US authorities for facilitating money laundering in 2012.

Mr David Gauke

Treasury Ministers and officials regularly discuss a wide range of issues with their counterparts in foreign jurisdictions.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2015-02-11.

To ask the Prime Minister, what due diligence he undertook on the background of Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint before his appointment as a Minister of State in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; and what communications he has had with Lord Green in respect of the accounts of British residents and nationals held by HSBC in Switzerland since 2005 since 7 February 2015.

Mr David Cameron

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on 11 February 2015, Official Report, columns 774-775.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2015-02-10.

To ask the Attorney General, what discussions he has had with the Crown Prosecution Service in respect of the possibility of prosecuting HSBC Bank for conspiracy to assist some of its customers to evade paying tax.

Mr Robert Buckland

The Attorney General and I frequently meet representatives of the Crown Prosecution Service to discuss a variety of issues. However, as was the case with previous Administrations, it is not the Government’s policy to provide details of all such meetings.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, on what dates the no-fly zones around nuclear facilities have been violated since May 2010; and what steps his Department has taken to ensure such violations do not occur in future.

Mr Robert Goodwill

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) maintains a complaint log for three years. Since June 2011, it has received 12 complaints from onsite Security Guards about aircraft which they believe may have overflown their respective sites at low level. 　 The dates of these incidents were:

12/06/2011	25/07/2012	25/08/2013
14/06/2011	02/01/2013	09/09/2013
24/06/2011	14/01/2013	03/10/2013
17/08/2011	15/08/2013	21/05/2014

All these recorded incidents were investigated, but due to a lack of evidence the only case which led to a successful prosecution occurred on 25 August 2013 and involved the use of a small unmanned aerial vehicle.

The need to report to the CAA all aircraft which appear to be low flying is written in the nuclear site’s security procedures manual. 　The successful prosecution demonstrates that the CAA investigates all such reported incidents and that it will take enforcement action when there is sufficient evidence available.　In addition, both the CAA and the Department for Energy and Climate Change seek to learn what they can from the investigations into reported incidents.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2014-06-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, if he will publish all documentation relating to the nuclear power investment signed with the Prime Minister of China covering Chinese state companies on 17 June 2014; and if he will publish all subsequent documentation.

Michael Fallon

On June 17 2014, the UK and China signed the Joint Statement on Civil Nuclear Energy Co-operation. DECC was also a co-signatory to the Memorandum of Understanding on Enhancing Co-operation in the Field of Civil Nuclear Industry Fuel Cycle Supply Chain. Both documents are online at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/multimillion-boost-to-uk-economy-as-china-and-uk-government-sign-civil-nuclear-agreement-and-sign-agreement-to-deepen-cooperation-on-climate-change

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