Thanks to all those who wrote to councillors recently, calling on us to support ActionAid’s Towns Against Tax Dodging campaign. I’m pleased to say that Norwich is with you, and last night passed a motion to support the campaign.
In my speech, I spoke about those Green politicians who have been working hard on this already, including Phillipe Lamberts, an MEP from Belgium who has been taking on the banks and insisting that country-by-country reporting of financial information ought to be mandatory. He is supported in Brussels by Sven Giegold, a German MEP and newly-elected South West MEP Molly Scott Cato, both of whom are expert economists who are using the influence they have in Europe to tame banks, curb tax dodging and make our financial systems work better for people and planet.
Closer to home, Green MP Caroline Lucas sponsored an Early Day Motion “General Anti-Tax Avoidance Principle” in 2012 and led the debate on the Fair Tax Mark, the label for good taxpayers.
I’m glad that Norwich City Council has joined the club through this motion, and that the leader of the council will be writing to George Osborne asking the government to listen to the strength of public feeling and act to end the injustice of tax dodging by large international companies in the UK.