Theresa May has refused to commit to a public register of the ownership of offshore companies and trusts in the wake of the Paradise Papers revelations but said new measures were already creating more transparency.

Leaked papers revealed that millions of pounds from the Queen’s private estate have been invested in a Cayman Islands fund as well as showing that the Conservative donor Lord Ashcroft used an offshore trust to shelter wealth.

After the revelations, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, appeared to suggest the Queen should apologise. “Anyone that is putting money into tax havens in order to avoid taxation in Britain, and obviously investigations have to take place, should do two things – not just apologise for it but also recognise what it does to our society,” said Corbyn.

In a later interview with Bloomberg Television, he said the Queen’s tax affairs should be subject to an inquiry his party has called for into tax avoidance. “There should be a review – an inquiry into all the revelations about the Paradise Papers,” Corbyn said.

Asked if that included the Queen, he replied: “Everybody. The royal household are subject to taxation. I don’t know what has happened in that case. These issues all must be part of that.”

The prime minister, asked at the CBI annual conference if she would finish the work of her predecessor, David Cameron, by creating a new transparent register, said the UK had been leading reforms. “We have been continuing the work that David Cameron started; he started it not just for the UK but on the international stage as well and that’s important,” she said.

HMRC had collected £160bn more in tax revenue since 2010, said May, adding: “There is already work that is being done to ensure greater transparency in the dependencies and British overseas territories and we continue to work with them.

“HMRC is already able to see more information about the ownership of shell companies for example so they can ensure that people are paying their tax. We want people to pay the tax that’s due.”



Labour has called for comprehensive country-by-country reporting of tax data, saying the Paradise Papers showed there was “one rule for the super-rich and another for the rest when it comes to paying tax”.

During Cameron’s drive against tax avoidance, he was urged by campaigners to force the overseas territories and crown dependencies to introduce central public registers of company ownership, if they would not do so voluntarily, allowing law-enforcement agencies to identify true beneficiaries.

Vince Cable, the leader of the Liberal Democrats and former business secretary, said on Monday that Cameron had swerved the prospect of forcing overseas territories to act. Cable said Cameron was initially attracted to the idea of a register of beneficial ownership being extended to British overseas territories, to clamp down on tax havens operating under a British flag.

“When the overseas territories said on a visit to London that they were against it, he backed down,” Cable said. “Given these revelations, including news that Conservative donors benefited from these arrangements, we need a parliamentary select committee to investigate fully who decided what and why.

“In particular, we need the release of all government papers dealing with the decision not to clamp down on offshore tax havens. Only in this way can we ensure there is full public confidence in the tax system.”

Corbyn, also speaking at the CBI conference, was asked in a Q&A whether the Queen should apologise for the £7.5m investment in a Cayman Islands fund as part of an offshore portfolio. “Anyone putting money into tax havens in order to avoid taxation in Britain – and obviously investigations have to take place – should do two things: not just apologise for it but also recognise what it does to our society,” the Labour leader said.

Corbyn said those using the funds should be forced to confront what it meant for public services. “If a very wealthy person wants to avoid taxation in Britain, and therefore put money into a tax haven somewhere, who loses?” he said. “Schools, hospitals, housing, all those public services lose and the rest of the population has to pay to cover up the deficit created by that.”

The Labour leader said businesses and politicians needed to “challenge the culture that there is something clever about avoiding taxation”.

“It undermines every one of us here, who pay our taxes properly and diligently: we are undermined by this kind of evasion,” he said, although there is no suggestion investors named in the Paradise Papers have been illegally evading tax.

Earlier in his speech to the conference, Corbyn called for a full public inquiry into tax avoidance and evasion, as well as a new tax enforcement unit at HMRC.



“Please understand the public anger and consternation at the scale of tax avoidance revealed yet again today,” he told the annual gathering of business leaders. “We are talking about tens of billions that are effectively being leached from our vital public services by a super-rich elite that holds the taxation system and the rest of us in contempt.

“We must take action now to put an end to this socially damaging and extortionately costly scandal.”

