Priti Patel 'utterly wrong' on aid
Patel’s aid for trade approach is ‘utterly wrong’
Responding to the news that in reviewing the aid budget International Development Secretary, Priti Patel, suggests we use the budget to help pave the way for post Brexit trade deals, Vicki Hird of War on Want, said:
"Any suggestion that the wheels of corporate led trade deals should be oiled by the aid budget is utterly wrong. Such deals benefit multinational corporations and external investors by removing power from countries to protect their own industries and services.
"Yes, DFID’s mission needs to be reviewed – aid is being used to promote the interests of multinational companies in Africa, rather than fighting poverty and inequality – but that review needs to ensure the aid budget is only used for genuine poverty reduction initiatives, such as support for small-scale farming, rather than boosting the profits of big business.
"If Patel really wants to help developing countries, she would push for an immediate abolition of the UK’s own global network of tax havens, which fuel secrecy and corruption, and push for public country by country reporting to tackle the lack of transparency in the global financial system."
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MPs: UK tax haven secrecy remains a global menace
19 October 2016 - MPs today paint a damning picture of how British companies and tax havens are helping the corrupt to steal vast sums from poor countries and so undermining UK aid, in a new report welcomed by Christian Aid.
“It is clear from the evidence we received that companies and individuals in the UK, Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories play a major role in facilitating global corruption,” says the report by the cross-party International Development Committee.
Simon Kirkland, UK Parliamentary and Political Adviser at Christian Aid, said: “MPs are absolutely right to focus on the shameful role that some UK tax havens play in global crime – and to show the devastating impact that corruption has on the lives on people in poverty.
“The MPs call on Theresa May’s government to use ‘the full weight of its influence’ to persuade UK tax havens to end the secrecy around who really owns the myriad companies they host.
“Christian Aid would go further – because the evidence of the last few years is that lobbying the likes of the British Virgin Islands simply does not work, even if you are the UK Prime Minister.
“Theresa May has repeatedly stressed the importance of paying tax in a civilised society, and of businesses not using tax havens. Now is the time to turn that rhetoric into reality – and today’s report provides a ready-made action plan.”
Mr Kirkland added: “Our view is that the UK government does have the constitutional power to impose change on its tax havens, as it has in the recent past in other corruption cases. After three years of delaying tactics from our tax havens, it’s time for the Government to insist on full transparency.”
As the MPs’ report points out, roughly half of the 113,000 companies which featured in the Panama Papers were registered in the British Virgin Islands – a UK tax haven. Two thousand UK-based intermediaries were also revealed, “making the UK second only to Hong-Kong for the number of facilitators of tax evasion and avoidance that it hosts”, the MPs said.
Christian Aid believes the Government could use its recently published Criminal Finances Bill to increase financial transparency in UK tax havens. The Bill includes some other good measures but without this, it cannot claim to be effectively tackling corruption.
The charity also warmly welcomed the MPs’ call for the UK government to use its power to require multinationals to publish currently secret information about their operations in each country where they work, such as their profits made and taxes paid. The move would help to curb rampant corporate tax dodging in poor and rich countries alike.
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