Presumably as a way of getting out of an endless debate about receipts, Ed Balls has issued a letter with some detailed questions about tax evasion and HSBC (as opposed to tax avoidance and window cleaners). The letter asks three questions:
1. Why has there only been one prosecution out of 1,100 names? Was the “selective prosecution policy” a decision made by Ministers?
2. When were you first made aware of these files, what action did you take and did you discuss it with the Prime Minister?
3. Why did you and David Cameron appoint Lord Green as a Conservative peer and Minister months after the government received these files?
4. Did you and David Cameron discuss tax evasion at HSBC with Lord Green, or did you turn a blind eye? Did you discuss allegations of money laundering at HSBC during Lord Green’s time at HSBC which led to the bank being fined $1.9bn?
5. Why did you sign a deal with the Swiss authorities in 2012 which prevents the UK from actively obtaining similar information in the future?
Labour needs to move the political debate back to the HSBC row. Balls is trying to pile the pressure on George Osborne to put up a periscope and respond to the questions, rather than disappearing like a submarine, as he prefers to do.
Disappearing rarely stops an issue from becoming a bigger story. But the Tories do need to work out a way of moving the row on. David Cameron’s welfare speech today was far more compassionate and thoughtful than its pre-briefing suggested, but it is running concurrently to the tax row, rather than overtaking it as an issue. Tory backbenchers are again growing grumpy that they are having to chant ‘long-term economic plan’ while everyone talks about something else.
Osborne hasn’t yet confirmed receipt of the letter.
Comments