“Despite all the fluster, the numbers suggest this government is more successful on tackling tax avoidance”, concludes Gauke. “It’s not about the heat and the noise, but about the delivery”, he says ending the debate.
Will the minister make available in the Commons library the details of the questions they have asked Lord Green behind the scenes?
“As far as I am aware nobody has come forward with any evidence suggesting that Lord Green had any knowledge of the events” in the Swiss subsidiary of HSBC, says Gauke.
We believe in low and competitive rates of corporation tax, but we also believe people should pay tax they owe, says Gauke.
Responding to criticism that the government has reduced tax for hedge funds, he says they have increased tax on limited liability partnerships, many of which are hedge funds.
Gauke is asked whether the government will publish a list of the people who have avoided tax, so it can be checked against a list of donors to the Tory party.
He says that the current system, in which the people fined for avoiding tax are kept anonymous, is more efficient.
Some reaction from Twitter –
Gauke has said repeatedly #HSBCFiles “has been known about” since 2007. Leak first became public in 2009, UK got the data in 2010.
— James Ball (@jamesrbuk) February 9, 2015
Defending fact only 1 prosecution over HSBC tax files, Gauke says HMRC prefers civil penalties and that would need “corroborating evidence”
— Matt Foster (@mlpfoster) February 9, 2015
Treasury Minister David Gauke keeps avoiding q re what ministers knew re HSBC tax allegations before Green made Lord & minister. 1/2
— Nick Robinson (@bbcnickrobinson) February 9, 2015
Treasury & HMRC refusing to say whether evidence re HSBC passed on to ministers in May ’10 BUT much more known then than in 2007
— Nick Robinson (@bbcnickrobinson) February 9, 2015
“There are clearly questions that need to be answered about what happened at HSBC between 2005 and 2007,” says Gauke. “HMRC are taking evidence from around 1000 people where there’s evidence that they’ve broken UK law and HMRC will continue to take evidence where further evidence arises.” He adds that no regulator has suggested that Lord Green was at fault for what happened in the Swiss subsidiary of the bank.
Refering to Andy Coulson, shadow minister for the Arts Chris Bryant says the prime minister has form when it comes to not vetting people it invites into government. He says that Cameron invites tax-dodgers into government.
“There have been 42 loopholes that this government has closed,” says Gauke. “We inherited a tax system where not enough was being done to prevent tax evasion”.
He says the HMRC yield from tackling tax avoidance has increased from £17bn in 2010 to £26bn forecast this year.
“The era of bank secrecy is over” as a consequence of the UK’s leadership, says Gauke.
It’s up to the prosecuting authorities in this country whether any action is taken against the HSBC entity, he says.
“Civil penalties are the most cost effective way of collecting the revenue and changing behaviour.”
“The fact is that HMRC is more successful at raising money from the wealthy and anybody else who tries to avoid their taxes,” says Gauke.
He says that the government has addressed weaknesses in the way that banks were regulated and weaknesses in the way tax was collected.
Civil penalties have been used against those found to be evading tax, he says, instead of criminal prosecutions.
Gauke says that HMRC received data from HSBC and the French authorities have agreed to aid investigations.
“This is further evidence of progress made by this government in tackling tax evasion and, indeed, tax avoidance.”
“The essence of the charge here is that this government hasn’t done enough to tackle tax avoidance,” he says
“It used to be the case that wealthy people could avoid paying stamp duty land tax,” he says, but this government has changed that.
Updated
Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, and a Liberal Democrat member of the government, has just issued a particularly strong statement:
Financial institutions who are proven to have colluded with tax evaders should face the full force of the law. We need to work with HMRC and regulators to make sure that they have all the legal and regulatory tools to tackle such situations. If that means a change in the law, or new powers for regulators, that is what we will do. We quite rightly prosecute and often jail people guilty of damaging our society through conventional crime and anti-social behaviour. The way we treat systematic tax evasion should be no different. If that means jail for offenders and those that conspire with them, then so be it. Over the last 5 years, thanks to the Liberal Democrats, we have taken unprecedented action to clamp down on tax avoidance and evasion. These practices are socially, morally, and economically unacceptable and I will continue to work to make sure that the law, and the way it is applied, reflects that.
Updated
Mahmood is asking why HMRC failed to act when it heard about the issue and whether any ministers were told.
“Any failure to question Stephen Green prior to his appointment would be inexplicable and inexcusable.”
David Gauke, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, is saying that the government has increased HMRC’s powers and has increased fines to 200% of the tax evaded.
He says that HMRC has gathered £2bn since 2010 as a result of an agreement with the Swiss government to tackle tax avoidance.
Labour MP for Birmingham Ladywood, Shabana Mahmood, is about to ask an urgent question on the HSBC papers in the Commons.
This is Frances Perraudin, and I’m taking over from Jennifer to cover the question and subsequent government statement.
Updated
A Labour member of the Treasury select committee wants HSBC executives and the UK tax authority, HM Revenue and Customs, called in for questioning on the tax avoidance revelations.
John Mann, the MP for Bassetlaw, said:
HSBC have been found to have helped its wealthiest clients avoid paying tax in the UK and it appears that HMRC not only knew about this but chose to do nothing about it.
I have written to Andrew Tyrie [the chair of the Treasury select committee] asking him to call the senior managers at both organisations to appear before the committee to explain their behaviour.
Reminder: The boss of HMRC is due to appear before a separate parliamentary committee on Wednesday, but it is too late to get anyone from HSBC to appear.
Updated
Cameron defends his record on tax
David Cameron, has defended the decision to appoint ex-HSBC boss Stephen Green to his government.
Speaking on a visit to Chester, the prime minister said:
Stephen Green was an excellent trade minister, he did a good job. But I’d also add no government has done more than this one to crack down on tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance.
I put it absolutely at the head of my G8 agenda, to make sure there’s more tax transparency, the big companies pay their taxes properly and that we raise money from people previously evading and avoiding tax and will go on doing that as a government.
Updated
Belgium considers arrest warrants for HSBC directors
Belgium may issue an international arrest warrant for some HSBC directors because they are not co-operating in a money-laundering investigation, a court has said.
A Belgian judge last year launched an investigation into HSBC’s private banking operations in Switzerland, after prosecutors charged the bank with tax fraud and money laundering. The bank is accused of helping diamond dealers and wealthy clients hide their money in Swiss accounts.
A spokeswoman for the Belgian prosecutor told Reuters that the judge is considering issuing arrest warrants because the bank is not handing over information voluntarily.
The judge has said that if it’s so hard to get the information, he’s considering international arrest warrants for the present directors in Belgium as well as Switzerland.
Senate leader wants answers from US government on HSBC files
A leading Democratic senator is calling on the US government to explain what actions it took after receiving the HSBC leaks.
Sherrod Brown, the leading Democrat on the Senate banking committee, said he would press lawmakers and regulators for answers.
I will be very interested to hear the government’s full explanation of its actions – or lack thereof – upon learning of these allegations in 2010.
As the Guardian reports, the leaked files have come to public attention at a critical moment for HSBC in the US, where prosecutors have already warned the bank is operating under a “sword of Damocles”.
HSBC global and its US bank was forced to pay a $1.9bn fine two years ago after the DoJ uncovered evidence HSBC subsidiaries had enabled clients to breach US sanctions against Cuba, Sudan and Iran and, due to oversight failures, allowed Mexican drug cartels launder billions of dollars.
Brown said:
If the [latest] charges are true, the same institution that was first caught violating US sanction laws and laundering money for Mexican drug cartels could then escape accountability for promoting widespread evasion of US tax laws. I intend on pressing regulators, the IRS [US tax collection agency], and the DoJ [Department of Justice] for answers.
The full story: Senate leader calls for US government’s explanation in wake of HSBC leaks
Reminder: last night on 60 Minutes, a leading US tax expert said HSBC may have been guilty of a felony.
This post was amended at 14.47: an earlier version said Sherrod Brown was seeking answers from the White House. The senator made no reference to the White House; he said he intends to press the Department of Justice and Inland Revenue Service for answers.
Updated
Thatcher’s chancellor says big banks should be broken up
Banks are too complex to manage and should be broken up, according to a former chancellor of the exchequer, who served under the Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher.
Lord Lawson, who was also a member of the parliamentary commission of banking standards, also for MPs to investigate the “shocking” allegations against HSBC.
Speaking on BBC radio 4’s World at One, he said.
Standards in banking have deteriorated over the years. Things which would never have been done in the past are being done now. The big banks are not only to big to fail but too big and too complex to manage.
He also said he did not believe Lord Green could have been aware of what was going on in the bank’s Swiss branch.
I can’t believe that Stephen Green, who amongst other things is an ordained Church of England priest, could possibly have known what was going on. But the fact that he, a very clever man, didn’t know what was going on is very serious.
I do think that banks are going to have to be split up – the big banks – so that they are less complex and not quite so big and so it is possible to manage them. I think that has to be done.
He should have known what was going on, but it seems he didn’t. No doubt the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons will wish to investigate this, to look into this very carefully.
Quotes via Press Association
Updated
If you want to explore the HSBC files, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, has created an interactive database that looks at the countries and individuals involved.
The leaked files cover 106,000 clients in 203 countries. The Guardian is one of 45 news organisations around the world that has analysed the data, with full coverage available here.
Cameron has no regrets over Lord Green appointment, says No10
David Cameron has no regrets about appointing ex-HSBC boss Stephen Green as trade minister, according to the prime minister’s official spokesman.
Speaking at a regular Westminster briefing, the spokesman said:
The Prime Minister’s view hasn’t changed, that Lord Green was an excellent trade minister.
He also said Cameron had never discussed the HSBC leaks with Lord Green:
There is certainly no record of any concerns of the type mentioned being raised with the Prime Minister.
He was unable to say when the contents of the documents were brought to the attention of Mr Cameron or other ministers.
Source: PA
Stephen Green, the former head of HSBC, who now sits in the House of Lords as a Conservative peer, has so far declined to comment on the tax-dodging scandal that has engulfed the bank.
Here is clip from BBC Panorama on the HSBC files, where Lord Green repeatedly refuses to answer any questions about the bank’s Swiss activities.
The full programme will be broadcast tonight at 8.30pm on BBC 1.
Updated
The shadow chancellor Ed Balls has hit back at critics who have accused Labour of letting the banks run riot.
Balls, a junior treasury minister in 2006-7, when the HSBC Swiss tax dodge was underway, wants to turn the spotlight back on the current government.
He is calling on chancellor George Osborne to answer questions in the House of Commons today.
Why, in the five years since this government was first given information about how HSBC helped people evade tax, has there only been one prosecution out of 1100 individuals identified?
And why did they appoint the Chairman of HSBC as a Tory Minister eight months after the government was told about the bank’s activities?
Nobody will fall for yet more desperate distraction tactics from George Osborne and the Tories when it is clear that this information was first given to the government in 2010.
That is why the Chancellor should come to the House of Commons and answer questions about this today.
A source close to Balls accused the government of attacking Labour in a “desperate bid” to distract attention from the appointment of Stephen Green.
The source said:
The information was first given to the government in 2010, so of course he [Ed Balls] was not aware of it.
Nick Robinson, the BBC’s political editor, highlights the questions the government has to answer.
Qs for @ToryTreasury – Did HMRC/Treasury know re HSBC’s tax evasion advice BEFORE Green made peer? How could @edballsmp have known in ’07?
— Nick Robinson (@bbcnickrobinson) February 9, 2015
Updated
Shabana Mahmood, the shadow Treasury minister who has been granted an urgent Commons question this afternoon, has just been on BBC News talking about the HSBC revelations.
She said the stories “very serious questions to answer and the fact we’re going back to a period of 2005-2007 doesn’t get HSBC off the hook when it comes to answering questions about why that culture took hold and why it took a whistleblower to bring these matters to light”.
She added:
“What we’re dealing with here are serious allegations and instances of tax evasion. Tax evasion is against the law. What this whistleblower showed was that the law was being broken and that speaks for itself.
“I think it’s right to ask whether the individuals at the head of this institution [HSBC] were aware of it. The question of the government, in relation to Lord Green, is at the moment in which this information came to light the government had been aware that these allegations were in the public domain from 2010 onwards – that is when we knew or had some inkling about what was going on – and yet despite knowing that they still chose to appoint Lord Green as a minister and I think they need to explain why they did that.”
Mahmood said questions also needed to be asked about the lack of prosecutions arising out of these leaked files. She said HMRC should explain whether it has sent cases to the CPS which have not been prosecuted.
Urgent Commons question on HSBC at 3.30pm
Shadow exchequer secretary Shabana Mahmood has been granted an urgent question on HSBC later on Monday.
At 3.30pm there will be an Urgent Question from @ShabanaMahmood on tax avoidance by HSBC. More details to follow. No statements today.
— House of Commons (@HouseofCommons) February 9, 2015
There is no word yet on which Treasury minister will issue a statement, with chancellor George Osborne out of the country.
Labour has asked the Treasury to make a Commons statement on the HSBC revelations.
Labour has asked Treasury to make a Commons statement with regard to HSBC. George Osborne on way to Turkey for G20 meeting.
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) February 9, 2015
Ed Balls: “The Chancellor shd come to the House of Commons + answer Qs about this today.” But is it too late for a UQ submission?
— Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) February 9, 2015
Updated
Tax campaigners demand criminal penalties for bank abuses
Tax campaigners are calling on governments to take “real action” to clamp down on tax avoidance and evasion in the wake of the HSBC revelations.
Global Witness said there needed to be tighter banking regulation and criminal penalties for senior executives responsible for serious failings, “so as to put an end to this kind of systemic abuse in the future”.
The campaign group highlights recent comments by HSBC against banking reforms.
Robert Palmer, head of the anti-money laundering campaign at Global Witness, said:
HSBC Chairman Douglas Flint recently warned that ‘excessive regulation’ is making his employees too risk-averse, but the facts make this hard to believe. These repeat offences show just how far Britain’s biggest bank has been willing to go to help clients hide their money and its origins. We need real action against individual executives when then intentionally seek to subvert the law.
HSBC leaks have damaged Switzerland’s image, says ex-minister
A senior Swiss politician has declared she is angry about the tax evasion scandal at HSBC’s Swiss unit and called for an investigation.
Micheline Calmy-Rey, who served as foreign minister between 2003-2011, said opening an investigation “would be the least that could be done”.
Speaking on Swiss radio, she said the case had seriously damaged Switzerland’s image.
I am angry. Switzerland has a good reputation for its efforts towards peace, for its economy. But then we learn there are slick individuals who do things.
As the Agence France-Presse news agency reports, so far the Swiss judiciary has only opened a probe against Hervé Falciani, the IT worker who in 2007 stole the HSBC files at the heart of the scandal and passed them on to French authorities.
HSBC Switzerland is already under investigation in France and Belgium over tax fraud allegations.
The Swiss Banking Association meanwhile said that banks “must always respect existing laws when carrying out their activities.”
“This goes for both the laws in their own country and the laws in the countries where they operate,” it said in statement sent to AFP, adding that if banks do not follow these laws “they have to take the consequences.”
However, the association stressed that banks cannot be held responsible for their client’s tax avoidance, and pointed out that Swiss banks over the past decade have radically shifted practices to help ensure conformity with tax laws.
The worst examples, it said, “are in the past.”
HSBC “complicit in law breaking” says tax expert
The HSBC tax dodging scandal is in a league of its own, according to Crawford Spence, a professor of accounting at of Warwick Business School, who researches tax avoidance.
He said:
The HSBC case is quite different from other recent tax scandals. HSBC has been complicit in clear tax evasion and law breaking rather than legitimate tax avoidance.
The latest details to emerge from the Public Accounts Committee are also particularly damning for the UK tax authorities, HMRC. It appears that we need to rely on computer hackers, investigative journalists and corporate whistleblowers to expose tax evasion. HMRC should be doing this as a matter of course, but must be lacking either in resources, political will or both.
A good point to put to the boss HM Revenue and Customs, who is due to appear before MPs on Wednesday.
Brussels vows to end tax evasion via secret bank accounts by 2018
The European Union’s executive arm has insisted it is taking action to clamp down on secret bank accounts in Switzerland.
A spokesperson at the European Commission in Brussels said the revelations confirmed that banking secrecy had been used to avoid taxation.
But she insisted that the EU had already negotiated an agreement with Switzerland to combat banking secrecy.
Switzerland is not a member of the EU and the two sides strike a deal in 2012 aimed at stopping EU citizens from hiding money in Swiss bank accounts.
But it will not come into force until 2018.
This plan would be much wider than previous agreements, the Commission spokesperson said, and would use “automatic exchange of information as a key weapon in the fight against tax evasion and avoidance”.
This will put an end to tax evasion and fraud by use of secret bank accounts.
Updated
The Guardian’s political editor, Patrick Wintour, points out that Stephen Green is also the author of a book: Serving God? Serving Mammon?
Looking forward to reading “Serving God ? Serving Mammon ?” by Stephen Green the former HSBC chairman.
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) February 9, 2015
According to the synopsis on Amazon, the book, published in 1996, “sets out in layman’s terms what the money markets do and how they can be used for both good and bad”.
The man at the centre of the Swiss leaks scandal is Stephen Green, HSBC’s former chief executive, who went on to become trade minister.
Who is Stephen Green? He had a 28-year career at HSBC, serving as chief executive between 2003-06, and executive chairman from 2006-10.
The HSBC files cover the period 2005-07.
Lord Green became a trade minister in David Cameron’s government in 2010, eight months after UK tax inspectors had been given a copy of the leaked UK files.
His appointment was supported by Liberal Democrat business minister Vince Cable, the Guardian reported at the time. The coalition government believed that Green had steered the bank capably through the credit crunch. The former Labour leader Gordon Brown was also said to be an admirer.
However, Green’s record at HSBC came under intense scrutiny, after it emerged the bank had continued to run accounts for suspected Mexican drug barons, even after Green and his fellow executives were told by regulators that the bank had a problem with money laundering.
Lord Green has also served as chairman of the British Bankers’ Association and is an ordained Anglican priest.
UK labour leader accuses gov of ignoring tax avoidance
Labour leader Ed Miliband has seized on the HSBC leaks and accused the government of turning a blind eye to tax avoidance.
The leader of the opposition told Sky News the government had serious questions to answer.
He also turned the spotlight on the UK tax authority, HM Revenue and Customs.
We need to know why HMRC apparently did not act, apart from at the margins, on the information that they seem to have been given about what was going on.
We need to know from the Government why they appointed Stephen Green of HSBC as a trade minister well after this information was passed to HMRC. I would like to see the Government explain what they did.
We cannot have a country where tax avoidance is allowed to carry on and where government just turns a blind eye.
Source: Press Association
Updated
India may extend tax investigation following Swiss leaks
Indian authorities are expected to widen a tax investigation after the revelations in the HSBC leaks.
The Indian Express, one of the news outlets that collaborated with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, reports that almost 2,000 Indian HSBC clients are involved, including politicians, businesspeople, diamond traders and people involved in drugs cartels.
The investigation revealed 1,195 Indian HSBC clients, roughly double the 628 names that French authorities gave to the government in 2011. The new revelation — published today as part of a global agreement — is expected to significantly widen the scale and scope of the ongoing probe by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) appointed by the supreme court.
A senior official at India’s tax authority, the Central Board for Direct Taxes, told the paper that everyone on the list would be contacted and would have to prove that they had acted within the law.
We are putting the onus of proving NRI [non-resident Indian] status during the relevant period on the account-holder.
Updated
HSBC’s French clients include drug smugglers, politicians and celebrities
The HSBC files are the biggest banking leak in history, throwing light on 30,000 accounts holding $120bn (£78bn) of assets.
Journalists from 45 countries were involved in analysing the secret files.
Here is a flavour of the coverage in Le Monde:
Who features on these lists that the French Treasury sent to several foreign administrations, and whose names we shall publish if we consider it to be in the public interest? Arms traffickers and drug smugglers, funders of terrorist organisations, politicians, celebrities, sporting idols and captains of industry, most of them keen to hide their money in Switzerland. It was perfectly illegal for the French clients and for many others to do this. The holders of the accounts are striking in their variety: French surgeons wishing to launder undeclared fees rub shoulders with the protagonists of the Elf affair, Belgian diamond traders, Al-Qaeda funders and a large number of Jewish families who had sent their assets to Switzerland for safekeeping as the Nazis took control of Europe.
Updated
HSBC may be guilty of felony under US law, says tax expert
HSBC may have been guilty of a felony under US law, according to a leading expert on white-collar crime and tax evasion.
Jack Blum, a former tax investigator at the US Senate, said any bank that helped an American citizen to evade taxes was guilty of a felony.
Blum is a Washington lawyer who was involved in the Lockheed Aircraft bribery investigation of the 1970s, which led to the passage of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Speaking on the CBS news programme 60 Minutes on Sunday night, he said:
First of all, for the average American taxpayer it’s beyond shocking. But, perhaps, not that surprising. Swiss banks have been caught protecting tax dodgers before, but never has this much detail been revealed.
Under US law, any bank that does that, that assists a US person in evading US tax is guilty of a felony. And it doesn’t matter where the bank is located or where the bankers are located.
You can read a full transcript of the CBS interview with Blum here.
Updated
UK’s chief tax inspector faces grilling from MPs
The head of the UK tax authority will face tough questions from MPs when she appears before a parliamentary committee later this week.
Lin Homer, the permanent secretary of HM Revenue and Customs, is due to appear before the public accounts committee on Wednesday, along with a senior treasury official.
Margaret Hodge, the Labour MP who chairs the committee, said HMRC had to do more to increase enforcement.
She said she was angry and depressed there would be no public hearing for HSBC bosses.
The bank’s executives will avoid an encounter with MPs because it is too close to the election to schedule new hearings.
Speaking to City AM, Hodge said:
I feel frustrated, angry and depressed … this is clearly a huge secret industry on a massive scale, which none of us knew about. It is all about helping exceedingly rich people avoid their tax.
We’ve been pursuing it for some time, but I don’t think we knew the depth of outrageous behaviour to which they had descended.
Updated
Australia recoups more than A$30m after getting HSBC files
The Australian tax office has confirmed for the first time that it received the HSBC files in 2010, and that it has used them to recover tens of millions from tax avoiders. Our colleague Paul Farrell reports:
The Australian Tax Office has said it has uncovered “a number of discrepancies” among hundreds of Swiss HSBC accounts held by Australians and has recovered more than A$30m in tax liabilities over the past five years.
In a statement to the Guardian on Monday, the ATO confirmed for the first time it received a leaked cache of 261 Swiss HSBC bank files in 2010, which it believes to be the same data obtained by the Guardian and other news groups.
An ATO spokesman said
In some cases, it was found that taxpayers had correctly reported these accounts to the ATO. However, there were a number where there were discrepancies and as a result we took further action. We initiated a number of reviews and audits, which to date have resulted in over A$30m in additional tax liabilities.
Full story: Australian Tax Office recoups more than A$30m after receiving HSBC files
Updated
Green has form when it comes to avoiding comment on wrongdoing at HSBC.
In 2012 he refused to answer questions about a money-laundering scandal at HSBC that led to a $1.9bn fine from US authorities. A US Senate investigation found the bank had been a conduit for drug barons and rogue states.
Green, who worked at HSBC for 28 years, expressed regret for “failures of implementation”, but declined to answer further questions.
It would not be appropriate for me to comment further on the specifics as this is a matter of continuing discussion between HSBC and the US authorities.
Lord Green ‘regrets’ HSBC scandal but still refuses to answer questions
Updated
Here is some of the reaction on Twitter to the Today interview and Green’s refusal to comment.
From Labour’s Barry Sheerman:
What “tough action” has been taken by this Govt then? Anyone gone to prison David Gauke or are all your friends & donors free & clear?
— Barry Sheerman MP (@BarrySheerman) February 9, 2015
Michael Crick of Channel 4 News:
As an ordained priest, one would expect Lord Stephen Green to be nothing but frank and truthful. So why no interviews on HSBC?
— Michael Crick (@MichaelLCrick) February 9, 2015
Journalist Mehdi Hasan says the warnings were there …
Some of us were warning against HSBC’s Lord Green being in govt a while ago. Mad decision to appoint him. http://t.co/temqq2CxIt
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) February 9, 2015
Updated
Lord Green refuses to comment
Stephen Green, HSBC’s global chief executive at the time of the Swiss operations, is now a Conservative peer in the House of Lords. He was trade minister in David Cameron’s government between 2011-13, taking up his post eight months after HMRC had been given the leaked documents from his bank.
He is refusing to comment.
Speaking on BBC Panorama, which will be broadcast tonight, he said:
As a matter of principle I will not comment on the business of HSBC past or present.
Gauke is being forced to defend a bilateral agreement the government signed with Switzerland on tax. He says it will mean the government has recovered £1.2bn from Swiss banks as a result of the agreement.
Within the next two to three years banking secrecy comes to an end … that is not something anyone thought was possible 20 years ago, but under our leadership we have delivered that.
And the interview is finished.
Updated
The CPS has taken the view that the chances of obtaining a criminal prosecution are pretty slim, says Gauke.
He adds that HMRC has recovered £135m in tax from those individuals in the leaked HSBC files.
Updated
Gauke:
The evidence shines a light on the way that banks were not behaving as they should have been.
He says Ed Balls has questions to answer about what happened on Labour’s watch.
Updated
HSBC has questions to answer, says Treasury minister
David Gauke, Conservative Treasury minister, is now being interviewed on Today.
Clearly HSBC have got questions to answer.
He said the disclosures reveal behaviour that is “not what we would expect from a major bank”.
He said there was no evidence that Stephen Green was involved in the activities of its Swiss subsidiary.
I am not aware of any evidence that Lord Green was himself involved in this type of activity.
Updated
The tax expert Richard Brooks is speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme about the HSBC leaks.
He has said UK tax authorities at HMRC refused to act on the evidence:
They have had massive evidence and not done anything about it.
He said David Gauke, Treasury minister, and HMRC knew there was massive tax evasion at HSBC.
Updated
HSBC shares fall 1%
The markets have opened and given their verdict on the HSBC leaks.
HSBC shares are down 1% to 615 pence.
Updated
HMRC failed to defend taxpayer’s interest – Hodge
Margaret Hodge, the influential Labour chair of the public accounts committee, has laid the blame at the door of HMRC, which is responsible for prosecuting tax evasion by British citizens and institutions.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, she also said Lord Green, the Conservative peer who previously ran HSBC, faced serious questions.
The Press Association has a full account of her interview.
“You are left wondering, as you see the enormity of what has been going on, what it actually takes to bring a tax cheat to court.
“If it had been a benefit cheat it would have been up for court years ago. Now we have had only one tax cheat taken before the British courts.”
Hodge said countries such as the US, France and Argentina were taking action against HSBC over its activities.
“We are never assertive enough, aggressive enough and I think just determined enough to actually protect the taxpayer,” she said.
“It makes me really frustrated that we have our tax authorities facing both ways. On the one hand, they are all part of the establishment, we want to look after them, on the other hand not defending really the taxpayer’s interest.”
Hodge accepted that many of the activities took place while Labour was in power.
“I think that times have changed and we have to move on. You have to remember in times past public finances were not under such tension, there weren’t so many demands on them, you didn’t have the deficit.”
She said former trade minister Lord Green, who previously ran HSBC, faced serious questions.
“Either he didn’t know and he was asleep at the wheel, or he did know and he was therefore involved in dodgy tax practices,” Hodge said. “Either way he was the man in charge and I think he has got really important questions to answer.”
Updated
Clegg accuses Labour of letting banks runs riot
Britain’s deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, has gone on the offensive over the HSBC leaks, accusing Labour of “letting the banks runs riot on their watch”. My colleague Josh Halliday has been listening to the Liberal Democrat leader on Sky News.
Clegg said the revelations showed “what a sophisticated industry it was to allow the wealthiest in society to avoid paying the tax which they should pay”.
Asked whether the shadow chancellor Ed Balls, who was city minister in the Labour government at the time, should explain what he knew about the Swiss accounts, Clegg said:
I think it would be great if Ed Balls, or indeed Ed Miliband, for once were just to get up and admit that they let the banks run riot on their watch. We warned them, the Liberal Democrats. I remember Vince Cable, myself and others saying to Ed Balls, Ed Miliband and Gordon Brown at the time that this is going to end in a car crash because the banks aren’t been properly regulated.
Ed Balls went on a prawn cocktail charm offensive to suck up to the banks and they now have the brass neck to somehow constantly accuse this government of not doing enough when we’ve done considerably more to straighten out the banks than Labour ever did. I think it would be very helpful if he was honest enough for once to come clean and admit that the banks went awry on all sorts of fronts during Labour’s term in office.
Updated
The City is expecting HSBC shares to fall by around 1.4% when the stock market opens at 8am.
Early broker calls – HSBC called to open down 1.4%, Areva down 1%, Standard Chartered down 0.8%
— RANsquawk (@RANsquawk) February 9, 2015
Summary
HSBC is under fire, after a large cache of leaked bank files revealed that it helped clients evade taxes and conceal millions of dollars.
The files, which cover the period 2005-07, amount to the biggest banking leak in history, shedding light on some 30,000 accounts holding almost $120bn (£78bn).
HSBC was led during this period by Stephen Green, now Lord Green, a former trade minister in David Cameron’s government who sits in the House of Lords. He has declined to comment.
The Labour opposition has said the government, and Britain’s tax-collection agency HMRC, has serious questions to answer.
The shadow secretary to the Treasury Cathy Jamieson said:
HMRC were made fully aware of these practices back in 2010. There are serious questions for the chancellor to answer about why just one person out of over 1,000 have been prosecuted in five years; and why the government’s Swiss tax deal has been such an embarrassing flop, raising a fraction of the amounts initially boasted of by ministers.
Tax avoidance and evasion harms every taxpayer in Britain, and undermines public services like the NHS.
I’ll be tracking Monday’s reaction to this massive leak into the affairs of the UK’s biggest bank.
Updated
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HSBC scandal: government makes statement in House of Commons - live
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