Ed Miliband was on Marr this morning.
First of all, best wishes to Andrew Marr and his family.
Second, let's look at what Ed Miliband said. Given pressure on my own time I can't comment on more than the one issue that really concerns me, and there is one of those. He announced this morning that the issue of transparency is vital with regard to corporation tax, which is a point I have made, often.
Miliband has recognised that unless we know which companies are paying tax where and on what profits then we cannot have an informed debate on whether companies are paying the right amount of tax in the right place at the right time.
The result is that Ed Miliband has said he wants to review how transparency can be applied to companies operating in this country.
I am not sure that's a commitment to full country-by-country reporting as yet, but I warmly welcome this as a move in the right direction and will watch with interest how this develops because without this change there is no way that major companies can be held to account for what they do if we do not know what it is.
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Ed Balls has followed this up with an article in the Huffington post. He has supported Ed Miliband but gone further with a committment to pubishing a consultation document with reference to various experts. He mentions transfer pricing, as well as the reducton of HMRC resources. Looks hopeful.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/ed-balls/we-need-action-to-end-tax-secrecy_b_2467078.html?utm_hp_ref=uk
Indeed – see my latest blog
Well I am pleased that Ed Balls has finally commented on this issue. However, how many people read the Huffington Post? Balls needs to find a way to communicate revised Labour policy to the majority of people, otherwise Labour will continually be blamed for the ‘mess that the UK economy is in’. He is a weak link for Labour because there is little doubt that he was in awe of the City and corporates and also part of a Governmeent which started to reduce staff at HMRC. He really does need to make a mea culpa statement.
Teresa, I went to the Fabian conference on Saturday – saw you there last year but not this. I got a question in at the pm plenary: why is Labour still only listening to failed economists with failed policies? I didn’t get a response, of course – they like taking 6 or so questions together so they can ignore the ones they haven’t an answer to.
[…] noted earlier what Ed Miliband said about tax and corporate transparency on the Andrew Marr show this morning and said that this was a welcome development about which I […]