13/04/2016 Daily Politics

700,000 more EU migrants are living in the UK than three years ago -

would leaving the European Union let us take control of our borders?

The Culture Secretary and the dominatrix -

John Whittingdale's relationship ended two years ago

and didn't make the papers until today,

but is that because the story wasn't worth printing?

David Cameron faces Jeremy Corbyn across the despatch box

for the first Prime Minister's Questions of the summer term -

And publishing your tax return is par for the course these days

if you're a politician - but whose form's been most memorable?

All that in the next hour and with us for the duration, two MPs

who've produced some fascinating reading - and I'm not just talking

The former Environment Secretary, who's now campaigning for the UK

to leave the EU, Owen Paterson, and Shadow Foreign Secretary

Hilary Benn - who is firmly in the Remain camp.

First this morning - there are now 3.3 million EU

nationals living in the UK, an increase of 700,000 over

from the Oxford Migration Observatory, which says

almost half of the 700,000 were from Poland and Romania.

Spain, Italy and Portugal accounted for almost

So is this all grist to the mill for the Leave campaign?

Hilary Benn, do you think the issue of freedom of movement will decide

who wins this argument? No, not in the end, because of the economic

argument remaining in the EU being extremely strong, not least because

of those workers that you are referring to, who make a net

contribution to the British economy. They pay more tax than they take

out, they help to paper the NHS, care for the elderly and things like

that. And secondly because if we wish to retain access to the biggest

in the market in the world, then it's quite clear that we would have

to continue to accept free movement, because that's what Norway and

Switzerland have to do, and I think, in the end, people will decide the

economic argument and the economic risks and we've seen the IMF report

that Kmart yesterday, talking about the risk if we were to leave. Our

group that came out yesterday. We will talk about the IMF and other

institutions in a moment. You've got conflicting information. The think

tank open Europe says immigration is unlikely to fall in the event of

Brexit because of examples of other large, developed countries with the

low unemployment... What would you like to sequence Bob people accept

immigration because we have an expanding economy but we need

control and we don't have control. When I was at Defra, we had a scheme

which is brought in skilled people to pick fruit. I saw an eye surgeon

two weeks ago, absolutely furious that she counsels Morris be rinsed,

better qualified, more skilled eye surgeons from California, Sutherland

rear -- southern India or Hong Kong. We need a policy so that we can

bring in targeted, skilled people in a whole range of sectors. But the

numbers may not change? The numbers depend on what our economy requires

but let's get the power to decide this in our own Parliament by people

who we kick out of their make the wrong decisions. That's the

difference stop if we accept Owen Paterson's argument that the numbers

may not change that much, or they may vary, but it will be us that

decides what sort of people come in and Tuesdays with the right skills.

If Owen is accepting that the numbers may not change, then what's

the point of leaving the EU? And this point about the single market,

because the two are intimately connected, I think it's very clear

that if we were to vote to leave, the EU would say, well, if you wish

to continue to have full access to the single market, with all other

benefits it brings for jobs, investment and economic growth, you

will have to what Norway does, which is to pay into the European budget.

They pay almost the same per head of population. You have to accept all

of the rules - you do - you have to accept free movement. The only

difference is that we will have removed ourselves from the room when

it comes to making decisions about others in the market works. How does

that make us better off? Is that the case, that it could be a trade-off?

The quid pro quo will be that you do still have to have some sort of

freedom of movement, otherwise we won't give you full access? We will

give you access but not full access. We are the fifth largest economy in

the world. We have the fastest growth. We will be able to get

control of our own policy, in our own Parliament, and people are very

angry about this, because they've had no say on this issue, because we

don't control this policy and they know Beverley well that people can

bowl about Victoria station this afternoon, drawn in by our growing

economy, and there is no decision on our part of who comes goes. That

will change if we get control of our own policy can stop the numbers

depend on how fast the economy is growing and which sectors one which

people. We want targeted policy, bringing the right people for the

right jobs at the right time. At the moment there is no stopping people

coming from the EU in large numbers, not just from Eastern Europe but

from southern Europe, where the economies are still recovering, from

Italy, from Portugal. Interviews all morning about the fact that in Spain

young Spanish people cannot get jobs that pay anything like the rate that

they are going to be paid here and, again, we wouldn't be able to do

anything about that. That is true and the prospects for young people

in Spain are pretty grim. It's one of the reasons why our decision on

the last Labour government decision, not to join the euro was wise of

time and even more wise in hindsight. But they are coming and

contributing to the economy. They are often low skilled workers. To

constantly assert that we will be able to continue to get access to

the single market on current terms and not have to accept free

movement, there is no evidence for that whatsoever, and the problem

with your argument, Owen, is that you won't control it and I wouldn't

control it in the event was voting to leave. It would be the other

member states. And the choice people have to make is, do we stick with

what we know and what we've got, which is access to the larger single

market in the world, with all of the benefits, or do we take a risk on

not getting as good a deal? And you can't promise the deal will be as

good, can you? It's looking like we are going to win because ICM gave us

the 3-point lead last night. We will have a massive mandate from the

British people. This is a key issue in the campaign and we will be

negotiating from a position of enormous strength. That changes the

whole debate. We are the fifth largest economy in the world. We are

saying we want control of our own borders, to decide who comes in and

when. We don't have that control now and there are people watching this

who are completely infuriated by that. How damaging do you think it

is that institutions like the IMF put out statements saying, and

highlighting, the risks, the uncertainty? Do they have as much

sway as the government would have us believe? Well, the good news is, the

IMF has got a track record of getting forecast heroically wrong.

They completely missed the 2008 recession. They weren't alone on

that. They told us that George Osborne's sensible measures to get

public spending back under control would lead to a terrible shock in

2013. Christine Lagarde actually said, "Do I have to go on my knees

to George Osborne to apologise?" So I think we can relax about this.

Doom and gloom, if you put your head in the oven, and what it is showing

is that the UK will continue to have the fastest growth in Europe and we

come down or .3 points. Does anybody care? The IMF is an institution,

within these hallowed walls in Westminster, people care about what

institutions think but out on the streets, people are thinking, this

is the time to be antiestablishment. We don't want to be told what is

better for us by these lofty organisations like the IMF. Will it

actually sway any books? In the end, people have got to make a choice. --

sway any votes. I'm convinced there will be an adverse economic impact

if we leave. It's why every single survey of business opinion has shown

that majority of those polled in those organisations have said that

we should remain in the European Union and, look, if we don't get the

deal, you confidently but it that we will but I don't make it so sure,

they might say free trade and industry, of course they might. When

it comes to services, which is really important for the British

economy, they might say, we are not so sure about that. The Leave

campaign say, let's be like Canada. At stake in seven years and isn't

yet a done deal and it doesn't give them full access to the single

market. -- it's taken seven years. The fact is, in the end, people have

to decide, do they feel that we have benefited economically and will

continue to benefit and be better off because we are in the EU? That

sounds like you don't think the IMF will actually have that much sway in

itself. It may feed into, as you say, arguments about uncertainty

generally. What about the press? We haven't had that many official

declarations in terms of in or out that there are stories on Adobe

bases from the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the Sun, pro-British stories.

How worried are you about that? The press will do what the press... What

about the influence? People have to decide. People may say, look, I

don't like ripping about the European Union. This is not a

referendum about whether you love the European Union. It's about, what

is the wise thing to do? And I think people will go into the polling

booth and decide, I may not like this or that but do I really want to

take a risk on us damaging our future economic prospects by

leaving? And that's where the IMF warning yesterday will have an

impact. They are leaving us. They are going to form a new coherent

state around the eurozone, from which we will be excluded. There is

dirty work of the crosswords. Yesterday a debate of European

Parliament that the IMF should take our seat. That is what is happening

and we will be excluded from major decisions stop we need to get back

control, and back our full seat and all the governing bodies that decide

regulation and we will completely recover man's world trade. We are

the great free trading nation and we want to go completely international,

working with all our historical links, and that would be a massive

and if it, not just a hard-working people here but some of the poorest

people. That is so wrong because being in the EU, the truth is, it

strengthens our voice in a whole range of fields. I am going to stop

this discussion at this moment. Very temporarily!

Now, the Culture Secretary, John Whittingdale,

But the story of his relationship with a dominatrix, which ended

more than two years ago, hasn't been reported until now,

despite the fact that journalists at several newspapers were aware

So has a conspiracy of silence protected the minister who oversees

the media - or was the story just not newsworthy enough to print?

Earlier this month, the journalism website Byline reported

John Whittingdale had a previous relationship with a professional

But the story stayed out of the newspapers.

Mr Whittingdale said that when he discovered the truth

about what she did in February 2014, he ended the relationship.

At the time of the relationship, Mr Whittingdale was chairman

of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, a post

But campaigners against press intrusion say the fact the story

wasn't reported has raised questions about a potential conflict

of interest involving the man in charge of media regulation

and the motivation of newspapers and broadcasters not to report it.

Four newspapers - the People, the Mail on Sunday, the Sun

and the Independent - learned about it but decided not

In a statement, Mr Whittingdale said what he called

an old story had no influence on any decisions he had taken

Labour has called for him to withdraw from any further

Number Ten said Mr Whittingdale was a "single man and entitled

to a private life" and had the full confidence of the Prime Minister.

This is what he had to say this morning

Can you really successfully regulate the press after last

What about what Labour are saying this morning...

That you shouldn't be taking decisions about the press?

We're joined now by former Lib Dem MP and campaigner

against press intrusion, Evan Harris.

Welcome to the programme. You were with Hacked Off for years and years.

Patkar off has been complaining -- Hacked Off has been complaining

about press intrusion. Now there has been a decision that there was no

public interest in intruding and you are complaining about. The Secretary

of State should not be regulating the press. John Whittingdale has

done two things that are unique. He has first decided to avert the

Government's previous policy that there will be a second part of the

Leveson Inquiry to look at the cover of the police and the press and the

corporate governance failures on hacking, and to cancel a cover-up

investigation is a serious matter. The Prime Minister said it will go

ahead. John Whittingdale in 2013 said it will go ahead. Now his

position is, it might not. What evidence do you have that any of

these decisions were taken because he knew that the papers have these

stories? The second thing he's done is that Parliament passed a law to

give victims access to justice, to sue the press and to encourage

newspapers into the royal charter system. As you know, laws need to be

commenced by a signature of the Secretary of State without further

action. He has chosen to suspend indefinitely commencement of that,

to the applause of the Society of editors to use conferencing made

this announcement without any consultation. What is the answer to

my question? I asked him in a recent meeting... What evidence is there

that given John Whittingdale has a long track record of being against

Leveson style regulation... In the Guardian he made it clear in 2012 as

part of the social media profile that he was opposed to Leveson. In

2012 he was. He voted in favour of it in March

2013 and spoke out in favour of it when the report was announced in

November. There may be something inaccurate a newspaper... But I've

met him... John Whittingdale has always opposed Levenson. That is

wrong. That is wrong. The government's policy, there was a

cross-party agreement signed, was that there would be a part two and

these incentives and access to justice would come forward. What is

the evidence? I want to tell you what he told me, I asked why he had

taken the power to decide whether to sign into law this thing that

Parliament passed, and he said it would keep the press on their toes.

It is not the job of a Secretary of State to do that and until they give

an alternative reason for why the government has decided to intervene

in press regulation, which all parties opposed, newspaper opposed,

there is no other reason why he would be doing that if it wasn't a

suspicion that he wanted to please the editors to stop them. So you are

claiming that he has acted as a minister in the ways you have

described because he knew the newspapers were looking at the

story? There appears to be no other explanation unless it is the case

that the Prime Minister breaks or promises he makes to victims and to

Parliament regardless. What evidence do you have for this? If this was

not the case, why would he not have told the Prime Minister on

appointment, they have got this story on me, there is no public

interest justification and they have not published but if it ever got out

it might be implied there is a conflict of interest. They know I

did not declare an overseas trip that arguably should have been

declared. How did he know when he became a minister that the press

were investigating this? It has been made clear in the articles

published, that not originally in the newspapers but on the website...

You don't know whether he was appointed that he knew the

newspapers were looking at the story. I think that has been made

clear. Do you know? That is a question that should be put to him.

You made the claim that he should have told the Prime Minister. And

asking if he knew there were investigations going on and you are

telling me you don't know. -- I am asking. It has not been disputed by

him that he was approached and he said at the time that he ended it

when I found out what she did. If that is the case, then he should

have told the Prime Minister, if it isn't, his position is much better.

If he didn't know they had a story, how could it be influencing him? A

journalist for the independent, has hacked off been working with him? He

has been following the trial. Have you been working with him on the

story? Even though a lot of people on social media have treated this

story which has been going around for a long time, you will not find

that Hacked Off has linked to this story. You have not been working

with Mystic you sick? No. -- with Mr Cusack. We were asked if we had any

reason to believe if John Whittingdale was seeking to appease

the press and by keeping the examples are given new and we also

applied Hansard references where John Whittingdale said there must be

part to Levenson and we will implement the crime and court act.

Is it not the case in this original story, as it was pitched, that it

was not as we subsequently discovered, that he was dating

someone and he discovered what she was and he ended the dating, but

that he had been actively using this prostitute and that was the original

story and it turned out that there was no evidence for that, isn't that

the case? I have no idea. If there is no public interest in the story,

we don't believe, just like we don't believe with this is deliberately

threesome that the press desperately want to publish... Do you think it

should be published? No. You don't believe the story of the celebrity

should be published despite... A judge has said there is no public

interest. We follow the rule of law, you may not. Editors might... It has

been published in Scotland. There was a judgment that said that rights

were engaged on both sides, freedom of expression and article eight

rights of privacy including the children and the judge said that on

the facts known to the judge, it should not be published. I respect

the judgment... We all respect but do you agree? If a judge had gone

the other way... I don't believe it is my job nor do I believe it is

John Whittingdale's job to decide what the press should print. There

is a code of practice and should be an independent regulator and should

be the rule of law. Is it not the case that Hacked Off has been

pushing the line that the Mail on Sunday was ready to publish this

story but senior editors and management in their organisation

intervened and that is the line your organisation has been pushing

privately? It was then discovered there was not a shred of evidence to

establish that, if that's not the case. James Cusack, who had the

courage to publish press issues, said in his article, which people

can read online, that the independent told him that their

landlords, the Daily Mail, did not want the independent running this

story, the public interest aspects of it because it would damage their

asset. It's quite clear. Do you have any evidence that the Mail on Sunday

pulled this story? I saw what was written in the Independent. That is

not in the -- that is not evidence. They have not defended their

actions, I don't know why you are asking me. What I'm trying to find

out is how close Hacked Off were involved in getting this story out.

We had no involvement in any of the stuff to do with the allegations on

his private life. We were asked not just by that journalist but by

others if there was any evidence that John Whittingdale has changed

government policy giving himself power over the press and we said

yes. He had said it is not necessarily the case that Levenson

part two will go ahead. Sajid Javid said it would not go ahead. No, he

didn't. It's my job to know what this they said. I know you think of

nothing else but that's my understanding of it, that

essentially Sajid Javid killed this. Let me ask Owen Paterson, whenever

Mr Whittingdale found out there were press investigations into this,

should he not have informed the Prime Minister? I think this is a

most extreme the outbreak of humbug. John had done nothing wrong. When he

was a backbencher, as soon as he found out that the woman he was

having an affair which had an embarrassing background, he stopped

the whole thing, 14 months before he became a cabinet minister. When he

found out there were several newspapers come up to four, looking

at this and looking to make something of it, if there was ought

not, that is another matter, but given his role as culture Secretary,

should he not have informed the Prime Minister? I don't know when he

found out and I don't know what form investigations took, investigations

go on the whole time. By sometime last year, he knew that there were

these investigations into his relationship. That is clear, that is

true. He has not denied that. You're talking about evidence as if he is

some rogue elephant pounding around making his old policy. He has made

it clear he does not want state intervention in the press and he is

right on that and any major position on this will be a collective

government 's decision and he will talk to the Prime Minister. We are

back to square one. The court case is going on, it seems sensible to

wait until it is over. Do you believe that as a result of this

that Mr Whittingdale should no longer be involved in the press

regulation element of his job? First of all, his private life is his own

affair and frankly, it is nobody else's business, that is an

important principle. The thing I would like him to do, and where I

agree, is to get on with implementing those two further

changes. Our main criticism of him is that he has not done as far, part

two of the inquiry and the access to justice, and if he did that, we

could move on because that is what is required. I agree. I know that

you are in favour of going down that route, that was not what I asked. I

asked, as a result of this story in the fact that the press was

investigating it, should he no longer be involved in any element of

the press regulation? I don't think that'll happen, is no sign it will

happen. He should get on and do his job. And that is to implement those

two... It was said that he should step back from any further

decisions. I don't think that will happen, that is what Maria said but

I don't think it will happen. What she meant was that the Secretary of

State should have no role. The Prime Minister has said that Levenson is

right and the government should stay out of this. He should not be

putting his thing over commencement of legislation that effect the

press. Now the story is out, there was nothing to hold over him. We

will see where it ends up. Thank you very much.

Now, it's well known that I'm partial to a drop of Blue Nun -

a very wise choice for the responsible drinker

But while here I'm only supposed to drink a measly 14 glasses a week,

if I moved to Chile I could safely quaff up to seven glasses a day!

Researchers at Stanford University have revealed the huge discrepancies

in official guidance on alcohol consumption - drinkers in Poland

and Vietnam are told they can drink two and half times as much as us

While in Australia, the size of a standard drink is over

Why not follow Jo Co's approach and just have a nice cup of tea,

To be in with a chance to win one of these,

see if you can remember when all of this happened.

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I'm glad you got all that out! It is coming up to midday on Wednesday,

there is Big Ben on a lovely spring day here in London and that must

mean Prime Minister's Questions are underway and Laura Kuenssberg is

here. Where does Jeremy Corbyn start today? It's quite difficult to know.

Sometimes you can have too much choice and as we have seen recently,

he will decide on one subject and go through that rather doggedly. He

also likes to stick to his subjects. Would he do anything else on tax?

Possibly Labour feel they made some ground on this fallout from the

Panama Papers. It is interesting because a few Labour MPs have said

to me, it was good because it was something they could unite around

and that felt different for them. So often since Jeremy Corbyn has been

in charge it has been disunity and disharmony and things being awkward.

Even at the top of the party! We were thinking about steel, personal

independent payment, tax... And the speed of the news cycle now seems to

get ever faster. We went into the Easter break with steel being the

big domestic story and what could be done to save the steel industry.

Then the Panama Papers came out of the blue and that dominated and that

then moved onto a story about tax returns and the Panama Papers were

kept behind. Now we have John press intrusion, it is difficult to keep

up with it -- we have John Whittingdale. It is quite

exhausting. Maybe there is a danger because things happen so quickly

that political parties are just beginning to get their heads round

them and what they might do or not do about an issue before moving onto

the next thing. I would say, in the background of all of this at the

moment, which is why the difficulties on different front the

government is having, whether about tax all John Whittingdale, it is the

backdrop of the EU referendum which is creating a unique and intense

pressure on what the government is doing. Let's go straight to the

Commons. Warning this morning I had meetings

with ministerial colleagues and in addition to my duties in this House,

I shall have further such meetings later today. Last week I visited a

manufacturing company, which supplied the Tower of London

poppies. Would my right honourable friend agree with me that supporting

small businesses and personal web of further increasing personal income

tax allowance shows that we on this side of the House are the party of

enterprise and inspiration and believe in enabling hard-working

people to keep more of the money they earn? Let me join her in

congratulating the firm that she mentioned. She's absolutely right

that it is small and medium-size businesses that predominantly will

be providing the jobs of the future and we want people to keep more of

their own money to spend as they choose. That's why the historic move

last week to an ?11,000 personal allowance means that people will

have gained, by 2018. They'll be paying ?1000 less per taxpayer and

we will have taken formally and of the lowest paid people out of tax

altogether. That is the action of the Progressive Conservative

government. Jeremy Corbyn. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I'm sure the whole

house will join me in mourning the death today of the dramatist Arnold

Wesker, one of the great playwrights of this country, one of those

wonderful angry young men of the 1950s and, like so many angry young

people, actually changed the face of our country. Yesterday, Mr Speaker,

the European Commission announced new proposals on country by country

tax reporting, so that companies must declare where they make their

profits in the EU and in blacklisted tax havens. Conservative MEPs voted

against the proposal for country by country reporting and against the

blacklisting. Can the Prime Minister now assure us that Conservative MEPs

will support the new proposal? First of all, let me join the right

honourable gentleman in mourning the loss of the famous playwright and

all the work that he did. It's quite right to mention that. Let me... Let

me also welcome... Let me welcome the

country by country tax reporting proposal put forward by Commissioner

Jonathan Hill, appointed by this government, the United Kingdom

Commissioner. This is very much based on the work that we've been

doing, leading the collaboration between countries, making sure that

we share tax information. As we discussed on Monday, this has gone

far faster and far further under this government than under any

previous government. Mr Speaker, if the proposals were put forward by

the British Government, wider Conservative MEPs then vote against

them? Their scenes to be a bit of a disconnect here. -- there seems to

be. The Panama papers exposed scandal situation, where wealthy

individuals seems to believe that corporation tax and other taxes are

something optional. Indeed, as the Member for Rutland and Melton

informed us, it is only for low achievers, apparently for top so

when the HMRC says that the tax gap is ?34 billion, why, then, is he

cutting HMRC staff by 20% and cutting down tax offices which loses

the expertise of people to close that tax gap? I'm glad he wants to

get onto our responsibilities to pay our taxes. I think that's very

important. I thought his tax return was a metaphor for Labour policy. It

was late, it was chaotic, it was inaccurate, it was costed. --

un-costed. He's absolutely right to identify the tax gap and that is why

we closed off loopholes in the last Parliament, equivalent of ?12

billion. We aim to close loopholes in this Parliament equivalent to ?16

billion, so the HMRC is taking very strong action, backed by this

government, backed by the Chancellor, legislated for by this

House, and I think I'm right in saying that since 2010 we put over

?1 billion into HMRC to increase its capabilities to collect the tax that

people should be paying. The difference, I think, between this

side of the House on the right honourable gentleman is we believe

in setting low tax rates and encouraging people to pay them and

it's working. Mr Speaker, I'm grateful to the Prime Minister for

drawing attention to my own tax return. There warts and all, the

warts being my handwriting all my generous donation to HMRC. I paid

taxes for companies that he might know quite well. The Prime

Minister... Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister isn't cutting tax abuse,

he's cutting down on tax collectors. The tax collected helps to fund our

NHS and all the other services. Last month, the OBR reported that HMRC

doesn't have the necessary resources to tackle offshore tax disclosures.

The Government is committed to taking ?400 million out of HMRC's

budget by 2020. Will he now commit to reversing that cut, so that we

can collect the tax that will help to pay for the services? I'm afraid

his figures, rather like his tax return, aren't entirely accurate.

The summer budget 2015, we gave an extra ?800 million to HMRC to fund

additional work to tackle tax evasion and noncompliance between

now and 2021. This is going to enable HMRC to recover equivalent of

7.2 billion in tax over the next five years and we've all be brought

in more than 2 billion from offshore tax evaders since 2010. -- we've

already brought in. I think we should try and bring some consensus

to this issue. For years in this country, Labour governments and

Conservative governments have an attitude to the Crown dependencies

and overseas territories that their tax affairs were a matter for them

and their compliance affairs were out of them and their transparency

was a matter for them. This government has changed that. We've

got the overseas territories and the Crown dependencies the table. We

said, you've got to have registers of ownership, you got to collaborate

with the UK Government, you got to make sure people don't hide their

taxes, and it's happening. So when he gets to his feet, he should

welcome the fact that huge progress has been made, raising taxes,

sorting out the overseas territories and Crown dependencies, closing the

tax gap, getting businesses to pay more, giving international

leadership to this issue, all things that never happened under Labour. Mr

Speaker, I thank the Prime Minister for that answer. The only problem

with it is that the red book states HMRC spending will fall from 3.3

billion to 2.9 billion by 20 20. And in regard to UK Crown dependencies

and overseas territories, only two days ago the Prime Minister said

that he had agreed that they will provide, the overseas territories,

UK law enforcement and tax agencies with full access to information on

the beneficial ownership of companies. There seems to be some

confusion here because the chief minister of Jersey said, in response

to a need for information without delay, where terrorist activities

are involved. We welcome his commitment to fighting terrorism but

is Jersey and all the other dependencies actually going to

provide beneficial ownership information or not? The short answer

to that is yes, they are. And that is what is such a big breakthrough.

I totally accept they are not going as far as us because we are

publishing a register of beneficial ownership. That will happen in June

and we will be one of the only countries in the world to do so. I

think Norway and Spain are the others. What the overseas

territories and Crown dependencies are doing is making sure that we

have full access to registers of beneficial ownership, to make sure

that people aren't invading or avoiding their taxes. In the

interests of giving full answers to his questions, let me give him the

figures for full-time equivalents in HMRC in terms of compliance. The

numbers are going from 25,020 ten to 26,798 in 2015. It's not how much

money you spend on the organisation but how many people you have out

there collecting the taxes and making sure the forms are properly

filled in. The Prime Minister is quite right. The number of people

out there collecting taxes is important. Therefore, why has he

laid off so many staff at HMRC who their four cannot collect those

taxes? In 2013, Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister demanded that the

overseas territories rip aside the cloak of secrecy by creating a

public register of beneficial ownership of information. Will he

now make it clear that the beneficial ownership register will

be an absolutely public document, transparent for all to see who

really owns these companies, and whether they are paying their taxes

or not? Let me be absolutely clear. For the United Kingdom, we have

taken the unprecedented step, never done by Labour, never done

previously by Conservatives, of open beneficial ownership registers with

the Crown dependencies and overseas territories. They have to give full

access to the registers of beneficial ownership. We did not

choose the option of forcing them to have a public register because we

believed if that was the case, we'd get into the situation that he spoke

about, where some of them might have walked away from this cooperation

altogether. That's the point. The question is, are we going to be able

to access the information? Yes. Are we going to be able to be sued tax

evaders? Yes. Did any of these things happen under a Labour

government? No. The Prime Minister does talk very tough and I grabbed

him that. The only problem is, it's not a public register he's offering

us. He is only offering us a private register that some people can see.

It's quite interesting that the premiere of the Cayman Islands is to

day apparently celebrating his victory over the Prime Minister

because he is saying the information certainly will not be available

publicly or available directly by any UK on an Cayman Islands agency.

The Prime Minister is supposed to be chasing down tax evasion and tax

avoidance. He's supposed to be bringing it all into the open. If he

cannot even persuade the premiere of the Cayman Islands or Jersey to open

up their books, where is the tough talk bringing the information we

need to collect the taxes that should pay for the services that

people need? I think he's misunderstanding what I've said. In

terms of the UK, it is an absolute first in terms of a register of

beneficial ownership that is public. He keeps saying it's not public. The

British one will be public. Further to that, and I think this is

important because it goes to a question asked by the right

honourable member for Tottenham, we are also saying to foreign companies

that have dealings with Britain that they have to declare their

properties and the properties they own, which will remove a huge

failure of secrecy over the ownership, for instance, of London

property. I'm not saying we've completed all this work but we've

got more tax information exchange, mortgage so beneficial ownership,

more chasing down tax evasion and avoidance, or money recovered from

businesses and individuals and all of these things are things that have

happened under this government. The truth is, he's running to catch up

because Labour did nothing in 13 years. Thank you, Mr Speaker. My

constituents John and Penny Clough, whose daughter Jane was tragically

murdered by her ex-partner whilst he was out on bail, are campaigning to

save Lancashire's nine women's refuges, which are currently at

threat because Labour run Lancashire County Council are proposing to cut

all of their funding. Does the Prime Minister agree with the Clough

family and me that Labour run Lancashire County Council should

prioritise the victims of domestic violence? First of all, my

honourable friend does raise a very moving case and I know the whole

house will wish to join me in sending our sincere condolences to

Mr and Mrs Clough. In terms of making sure we stop violence against

women and girls, nobody should be living in fear of these crimes. That

is why we committed ?80 million of extra funding to 2020 to tackle

violence against women and girls and this does include funding for

securing the future for refuges and other accommodation based services.

But it obviously helps if local councils make the right decisions as

well. The United Kingdom and its offshore territories and

dependencies collectively sits at the top of the financial secrecy

index of the tax Justice network. Since the leaking of the Panama

papers, France has put Panama on a blacklist of uncooperative tax

havens and the Mossad Fonseca offices have been raided by the

police in Panama City. What have British authorities done

specifically in relation to Mossad Fonseca and with Panama since the

leak of the Panama papers? First of all, in terms of who is at the top

of the permit of tax secrecy, I think it is now an fair to say that

about our Crown dependencies and overseas territories as they are now

going to cooperate with the three things that we asked them to do in

terms of the reporting standard, the exchange of tax information and

access to register the beneficial ownership. That is more than we get

out of some states in America, like Delaware. So I think in this House

we should be tough on all those that facilitate lack of transparency but

we should be accurate in the way we do it. He asked what we are doing

about the Panama papers. We have a ?10 million funded cross agency

review to get to the bottom of all the relevant information. It would

hugely be helped if the newspapers and other investigative journalists

now share this information with tax inspectors, so we can get to the

bottom of it, and his final question on blacklists - we are happy to

support blacklists but we don't think you should draw up a blacklist

solely on the basis of a territory raising a low tax rate. We don't

think that is the right approach. That approach the French have

sometimes taken in the past was in terms of taking action against tax

havens, this government has done more than any previous one.

3250 DWP staff has been specifically investigating benefit fraud while

only 300 HMRC staff have been systematically investigating tax

evasion. Surely we should care equally about people abusing the tax

system and those abusing the benefit system. Why has this government had

ten times more staff dealing often with the poorest in society abusing

benefits than with the super-rich evading their taxes? I will look

carefully at his statistics but they sound to me entirely bogus for this

reason. The predominant job of the DWP is to make sure that people

receive their benefits. The predominant job of HMRC is to make

sure people pay their taxes. The 26,000 people I spoke about earlier

are all making sure that people pay their taxes, the clue is in the

title. Many farmers in South Herefordshire are still awaiting

their 2015 payments from the rural payments agency. Nearly four months

after they were due which follows the failure of the RPA website last

year which is causing great personal and financial distress and threatens

the future of farm businesses so will the Prime Minister agreed to

meet farmers on this issue and press the RPA to make the payments by the

end of this month and does he share my view that farmers should receive

interest on the amount overdue? I have recently met with both the NFU

and Welsh NFU and have continued to have meetings with farming

organisations including in my own constituency and I know that have

been problems with the payment system. The latest figures are some

-- that 87% of claims have been paid and bowed -- I believe that the

figures in Herefordshire are in line with the national average but that

is no consolation for those who have not received payments which is why

we have a process and we are working with charities and we made payments

amounting to over ?7 million but we have to make sure that the system

works better in the future. If the British people vote to leave the

European Union, will the Prime Minister remain in office to

implement their decision? Yes. CHEERING

Again on Europe, does the Prime Minister agree that the European

Union is not just the world's biggest single market but also an

ample source of foreign and direct investment providing 50% of the

investment we receive and also an excellent platform for supplying

James to thrive and prosper meaning the ability to get the skills they

need and the innovation they need and for my constituency means a

whole load of high-tech companies thriving and prospering as they do

in the UK? I remember my visit to his constituency when the company

showed me a world first in a bicycle that was printed on a 3-D printer. I

did not give it a try but it looked like it might even carry some of my

weight! The single market is 500 million people and that is a great

market for our businesses and services and increasingly the market

that the supply chain is getting more integrated and that is why we

should think carefully before separating ourselves from it. Brain

tumours are the biggest cancer killer of children and people under

40 but despite this, research into them received less than 1%, just

over 1% of the UK's national spent on cancer research. This will be the

subject of a debate next Monday in Westminster Hall. Will the Prime

Minister at a word with the Secretary of State for Health so

that the minister answering that debate might be able to bring with

him or her some long overdue good news of change in this area? I'm

very happy to do exactly as he says. It is an important issue. We invest

something like 1.7 billion a year in health research but there is always

a question when it comes to cancer research, the spending has gone up

by a third over the last Parliament the daily 100 35mm hounds but there

is the question of whether that is fairly distributed -- ?135 million.

I have a still produce in my constituency and share concerns

about the future of the industry. The North of England still had

significant manner that drink but it has been held back by green taxes,

high energy costs and emissions targets. What more can he do to help

energy intensive industries? I think he raises an important point and the

changes we are making will save the steel industry over ?400 million by

the end of this Parliament and that is a good example of what we can do.

There was an excellent debate yesterday about this issue, we have

to work on everything we can in terms of procurement, making sure we

are taking action in the EU against dumping and we are. We have to make

sure we reduce energy costs where we can and we stand by to work with any

potential purchaser of the Port Talbot works which will safeguard

steel jobs in other parts of the country to see how we can help on a

commercial basis. I'm satisfied with doing everything we can. We cannot

totally bucked the global trend of this massive overcapacity of steel

and decline in prices but those are the key areas in terms of power and

plant and procurement, all areas where we can help. Research by the

Sutton trust shows turning schools in the academies does not

necessarily improve them. Thousands of excellent primary schools,

parents want them to be continued to be maintained by their local

authority so why are ministers are planning to overall parents and

force those schools to become academies? I think the evidence

shows that academies work as part of our education reforms. Let me give

the evidence. If you look at those schools that converted into

academies, 88% of them are other outstanding or good schools. If you

look at the sponsored academies, often failing schools, if you listen

and look at what happened with the schools that were often failing but

were now sponsored by academies, you have seen on average a 10%

improvement over the first two years. All the evidence is that

results are better, freedoms lead to improvements and where there are

problems, intervention happens far faster with academies. We have 1.4

million more children in good or outstanding schools and we should

finish the job. The Prime Minister has met many

great people but I believe he has yet to meet the Vale of Evesham very

open does the asparagus man. Would you like to join me for the upcoming

British asparagus festival which starts on St George's Day and show

his support for our fantastic farming industry? I'm happy to say

that my honourable friend's constituency is only one

constituency away, we share the same railway line so if there is an

opportunity for some great British asparagus I would be happy to join

him. Can I take the Prime Minister back to his response to the

honourable member's drop handle, it was a truly dreadful case. Women's

refuges are facing absolute crisis. The changes the government proposes

to make to housing benefit will force the closure of women's

refuges. He needs urgently to look again at these changes because

unless he makes refuges exempt, they will be closing up and down the

country. Can he do it? What I would say is what we did in the last

Parliament with rape crisis centres we are doing the same type of thing

with these refuges and that is why the ?80 million of funding is so

important. It is widely Secretary of State has written to local

authorities to explain that this money is available to make sure

those refuges are there. As part of world autism awareness week last

week, the National Autistic Society launched its biggest ever awareness

campaign. Young Alex Cunliffe the star of the film, was here in the

house and met many MPs this week -- Ruairidh Young Alex, the star

some 50% of autistic people don't even go out in public because of

what people think and their reaction. Will he meet with me and

the Cherokee to discuss how the government can support this campaign

and how we can tackle the social isolation of so many families -- and

the charity. Let me pay tribute to my right honourable friend who has

been campaigning and legislating on this issue now for many years

including the landmark legislation that went through in the last

Parliament. We have been working closely with the autism aligned and

have invested some ?325,000 since 2014 but we don't do more in terms

of helping -- helping families with autistic children and raising the

profile of the understanding of what being autistic is all about. Let me

put in a plug for the strange incident of the dog in a night which

is still available at the Whitehall Theatre, it is excellent and will

give you a better explanation of autism and perhaps anything we can

discuss in this house. Authorities in the room, El Salvador and Panama

have raided offices of Mossack Fonseca, seizing documents and

computer equipment but nobody has knocked on the door of their branch

in the UK. While recognising the operational independence of our

enforcement agencies, does he share my deep concern that come as we

speak, documents are no doubt being shredded and databases being wiped,

undermining the opportunity to bring further potential wrongdoing to

like? She makes an important point which is that we need to make sure

that all the evidence coming out Panama is properly investigated and

that is right we have set up a special cross agency team including

the National Crime Agency, HMRC and other relevant bodies to make sure

we get to the bottom of what happened. She is right to reference

the fact that these organisations are operationally independent and it

would be quite wrong for a minister or Prime Minister to order an

investigator into a particular building in a particular way, that

is not a river, we want to cross in this house. Empower the National

crime agency and HMRC, give them resources and let them get on with

the job. Can I draw his attention to the tragic death of a 20 month --

21-month-old baby when she was stamped on by her mother so

violently that it prompted her heart. Yet she had been known to

social services since the day she was born, they knew about the

violent boyfriends, the domestic violence, they saw the doors kicked

in and smelt the cannabis, they saw the bruisers, the cuts, the

fingerprints on her little thighs and they did nothing -- bruises. He

will understand that people want to know how this could have happened

yet they are concerned to know that the serious case review has on its

panel people who are directly involved in the

organisationorganisations are being investigated. Will he look at what

we can do to make this and other serious case reviews more

independent so we can make sure that no other child suffers the life and

death that this little girl did? I think my honourable friend is

absolutely right to raise this. Obviously in the work we all do we

hear about some hideous and horrific incidents but anybody watching

television that night and seeing the description of what happened to that

girl could it simply took your breath away that people could behave

in such a despicable way towards their own children. There is no

punishment in the world in my view that fits that sort of crime carried

out by their own parent. There will be a serious case review and I will

look carefully at the suggestions he makes and I know the Secretary of

State for Education will do so as well. There are criticisms of the

way these cases are done but in this case we must get on with the review

because we have to get to the bottom of what went wrong. There are

currently over 7000 people in the UK needing an organ transplant

including 139 children and many will die because of a shortage of

available organs. The Welsh Labour government has already introduced

ground-breaking legislation for opt out organisation in Wales so will

you join me in supporting the campaign for opt out organ donation

throughout the UK? I'm always happy to look at this again having looked

at it before and have not come out in favour of opting out. We debated

in the last Parliament and made a lot of moves to making opt in much

easier and we found that if you look at different hospitals and areas of

the country there are different record in terms of how well they do.

My position is that it is something we should support and continue to

drive but this house can vote on the issue about whether it wants to go

down the Welsh track rather than the track we are on but personally I say

we should make opt in better. He will be well aware that our

colleague Lord Bates has just started a 2000 mile walk from one is

Iris to Rio de Janeiro, arriving in time for the Olympics -- Buenos

Aires. Will he join me in wishing him well on this epic journey and

committing his government to uphold the values and principles of the

Olympic truce? I have already written to Michael Bates to wish him

well and give support for the work he has done over many years. He

leaves me a bit of a hole in the House of Lords where he has been

doing fantastic work for the Home Office on security issues so we wish

him a good walk and a speedy return. At Ealing hospital the experienced

doctors I met with last week are dismayed that the government's own

equality assessment of their new contract find it discriminates

against women which is over half of them. As he is a self-confessed

feminist, leading a progressive government, will he... So he says.

Will the reverse this blatant injustice which has no place in

2016? I am grateful for her question and backhanded compliment! I would

say that this contract is actually very pro-women because it involves a

13% basic pay rise, because it restricts the currently horrendous

hours that some junior doctors are working that are unsafe, and because

it gives greater guarantees about levels of pay and the amount of

money that doctors will get. As people start to work on it and with

it, they will see it is very pro-women. Over 200,000 economic

migrants came from the European Union in the period for which we

have figures and yet the propaganda sheet said at the British people

says we maintain control of our borders. As we withdrawn from the

free movement of people all sit -- is it simply untrue? The truth is

that economic migrants coming and to the EU don't have the right to come

to the UK, they are not European nationals. They are nationals of

Pakistan or Morocco or Turkey. None of them have the right so it is very

important and it is important we send information stew households

because then they can see the truth about what is proposed. What he has

put forward is classic of the sort of scare stories we get, Britain has

borders, Britain will keep its borders, we have the best of both

worlds. Still at university at the University of sporting excellence

elite sports have been rocked in recent months about an international

doping scandal that threatens the entire country is thrown out or

major and petitions. Does he agree that the world anti-doping agency

needs further support and can he tell me what further action can be

taken? I think he is right to raise it, Wada has made a lot of advances

in recent years. There is a relevance to our anti-corruption

Summit in May when we will be looking at corruption in sport and

bringing forward new codes of practice to adopt in this country

and we hope others also do. There is also the question about whether

doping should be a specific criminal offence which is something we should

be debating. What progress has been made in impairment in Sir Bruce

Keogh's ten clinical standards published in December 2013 which are

essential for rolling out the seven-day NHS? Perhaps I can write

specifically on the clinical standards but the truth is that what

is good is that he and others in the NHS support this vision of a

seven-day NHS and recognise that we should pay tribute to all those

doctors and nurses who work at weekends already because it is very

important but what we are trying to move toward is an NHS where the

individual has access to their family doctor seven days a week and

also where hospitals work on or seven databases because it will save

lives and improve care and I will write to him about the specific

detail. Parent governors play a key role in local schools supporting

their children's education and performing an important civic duty.

If the Prime Minister aware of the sadness and anger which has resulted

from the forced Academy 's announcement that the duty for each

school to have parent governors will be removed? Will he urgently review

this attack on parents? I'm delighted the Honourable lady asked

this question because we will be debating it later but let me be

clear, we support parent governors, we think they have a great role to

play but no school should think that is simply -- that by simply having

parent governors you have solved the problem about engaging with parents.

Let me say that there is something in the Labour motion today that it

actually inaccurate and should be withdrawn. It says, the white Paper

proposes the removal of parent governors from school governing

bodies. It does no such thing. As well as not getting his tax return

in on time coming is bringing forward motions that are simply

wrong. So Prime Minister's Questions comes

to an end. It used a version 12 30p. Now we are lucky if it finishes at

12:40pm. The subject on the front tax, tax, tax and then a bit more

tax from the EU now moving to beef up exchange of information between

various territories to other HMRC -- to whether HMRC in this country has

enough resource to climb down on tax evasion and aggressive tax

avoidance, to the role of the overseas territories and Crown

dependencies and whether the register of registered companies in

these various territories is now going to allow proper investigation

by the British authorities. It was all covered between the two

frontbenchers, then we got Angus Robertson and we moved to tax, tax,

tax. He raised the issues with those two questions, so it is clearly

still the big issue in Westminster. Before we get some reaction, let's

hear what you thought of today's PMQs.

Well, it still tax, in that consistent line of questioning and

e-mail so stop Mike Wilkinson said, Jeremy Corbyn started off on a good

know but once got embroiled in technical detail he lost his

audience. That in David Cameron's worst period as PM Jeremy Corbyn

still can't land a decisive blow him is worrying. Another viewer said the

questions were too long and delivered a clumsy way. David

Cameron is much better at thinking on his feet and has an easy ride.

Spencer says, Cameron budget request and again. Jeremy Corbyn the winner

by a mile. Under a different subject, this from Gareth Hughes

says, David Cameron says he would remain in office to represent the

will of the British people in the event of a Leave vote on the 23rd of

June in response to Doug -- Douglas Carswell was Bob question. Total

fantasy. He will be gone within a week.

We may be struggling to keep our jobs if that turns out to be right.

I'm going to come onto that because it an important issue. But first,

did we learn anything on the tax exchanges or was it just more of the

same? What we learned is just how big an issue this has been and how

much it has pervaded everything in politics over the last ten days. We

had Jeremy Corbyn and Caroline Lucas and Angus Robertson, so from across

the parties, people thinking this is a bruise that is absolutely worth

pressing on the Prime Minister in terms of his own experience in the

last ten days. I don't think we've learned very much that was new but

it tells us the depth of feeling and that politicians in opposition

parties believe it's absolutely worth carrying on trying to hang

this around the Prime Minister. In a less adversarial political system,

Hilary Benn, commentators could well conclude that there is broad

consensus on what should be done on tax avoidance and tax evasion. I

think there's an element of truth in that. What was striking was that the

Prime Minister did not answer Jeremy's first question about why

Conservative MEPs have been voting against this, and I trust that they

will now be instructed to change their... Can the British party

leader instruct the MEPs? He might want to ring them up and say, since

I've just told the House of Commons this is an I support it might be

helped lift you would stop trying to obstruct it. That's the first point.

Secondly, I absolutely welcome what has been agreed with the overseas

territories and Crown dependencies, apart from the two Prime Minister

mentioned on Monday, but there is let it a question I raised myself -

if the British register, which I think is going to come live in June,

is going to be available to the public, the register beneficial

ownership, what exactly is the argument for saying to the overseas

territories and Crown dependencies, you don't have to do that now,

especially when two years ago the Prime Minister wrote to them arguing

it should be open on one of the reasons he gave them was that it

would help to tackle crime. If it's going to help to tackle crime, he

should press the point. I understand that but didn't you get the

impression that he thought that if he forced that particular point on

them, it could delay the whole business of transparency and that he

thought that he had made major progress by allowing automatic

access by the authorities in this country, HMRC, the National Crime

Agency, the serious fraud squad, to these registers. You and I may not

be able to see them but the guys and women who are going to do all the

hard work would get to see them, they would now have access that they

didn't have before, including two beneficial ownership. It is and

that's why it is a step forward in the same way that the European Union

actually makes a point that I was arguing earlier, the EU has just

agreed the fourth anti-money-laundering directive,

which is also going to make things more transparent, including for

those who have a need to know, investigative journalists, and that

is a really good example of how working with our allies in Europe

helps us to tackle this problem. What's your take on this? The hero

was David Cork. He brought in measures to close 40 loopholes and I

think that 12 were brought in and he's looking at bringing in another

60 million with liberals. Someone told me that Jack Straw said we

could have done more in our time and David has done an awful lot of this.

What I didn't quite get was wide Jeremy Corbyn was buying on about

transparency. The Prime Minister has made it clear that if he pushed the

overseas territories to far, and it's all absolutely open, for a

reason I don't totally understand, they won't play ball. The key thing

surely is HMRC and the National Crime Agency have access to the

books on the information. That's what's really important. That would

be a game changer. I'm totally sympathetic with the Primus's

comment that we will be transparent but if we want all these overseas

territories to play ball, don't push them to the transparency. Make sure

we have total access our agencies. There are two reasons why Labour is

keen to keep pressing on this. Firstly, Jeremy Corbyn has

campaigned on these issues for a long time, tax transparency and what

happens around the world, so this is one of his core issues, but they

know that what's happened in the last ten days makes this a

vulnerability for the Prime Minister. It even lead Jeremy Corbyn

to do is an quite unusual, which was to crack rather a good joke at the

prime list's expense, joking that he paid more tax than some of the

companies that David Cameron might know quite well did. For Jeremy

Corbyn, this is a good, not easy, but a straightforward political

issue, even though behind-the-scenes there is quite a lot of consensus

that has meant that progress has been made here. So the accusation

that the Government's done nothing and sat back and nothing has changed

in the last couple of years doesn't quite wash, but it's a vulnerable

political area for the Prime Minister, as we've seen in the last

ten days. It's clearly been a bruising time for the Prime

Minister, not just on this issue but a whole host of issues, including

steel, the budget and the Panama papers and so on. Isn't there a

danger, given the pivotal role the Prime Minister will play in the

Remain campaign, that what damages the Prime Minister risks damaging

the Remain campaign? Yes, indeed, because the Prime Minister is the

figure who is going to be upfront and central in the Remain campaign.

That is the way that they are planning to play it, that is how

they have been playing it so far. And, of course, anything that dog

damages trust in him does damage how much the message that comes out of

his mouth, how that will land with members of the public who are

undecided. Particularly because he needs to get centrist and

centre-left voters and these are not great issues to attract them. And we

understand that there is some nervousness among Remainders that

the message that has been put forward isn't landing very well with

Labour voters because it appears that it is coming out of the

Conservative Prime Minister's mouth, therefore that is a problem for

them. There is almost a retro feel about all of this, however serious

these stories really are stop we've had embarrassment or perceived

embarrassment from Conservatives over financial dealings. We had

split over Europe, difficulties over an industrial issue like what's

happening in steel, and then today this story about John Whittingdale.

It's got a touch of the 1980s about it and it is definitely difficult

for David Cameron. I would suggest that what we are seeing is the

difficulty that Number Ten is having in keeping a grip on the sort of

everyday business of government and a grip on this big political

campaign. Sticking with this theme, what was the significance, given

that Mr Carswell, the one Ukip MP, that he knew what the answer would

be gone because it is the pro forma answer from the Prime Minister, why

did he ask him, would he stepped down as Prime Minister in the event

of a leave vote? I just wonder if he is trying to prepare the ground for

something that I understand is going to happen in the next week or so.

Senior figures on the Leave side believe very strongly that if there

is a vote for us to leave the EU that people who argued on their case

should absolutely be involved in the negotiations over the kind of

relationship that we have with the rest of the EU and how we depart.

They believe that very strongly. They believe that David Cameron, the

Foreign Secretary, the Chancellor, should not be the only people in

charge of those the glaciations. They would have to bring in someone

like Michael Gove? -- those negotiations. They absolutely

believe they would have the right to be around that table if they have

won the argument and I expect in the next week or so, we'll hear that

argument being put publicly. I wonder if that's what Douglas cars

will was trying to prepare the ground for. What's your view? You

said earlier that you thought you were going to win. I was interested

in that because so far, mostly poor people have gone that far. You can

leave them, rightly or only, that the wind is behind you on this so if

it is and you are right, who should do the negotiations to exit? You get

away from Westminster, you get away from the London bubble, you get out

into the counties. I was in Northern Ireland last week. The strength of

feeling on the ground is remarkable. I'm not arguing about that. My

question was quite specific - who should do the renegotiation, or the

negotiation, the exit turns if you are right? Well, there will be a

mandate. This will give real strength to the team who are

negotiating. But who should do it? It's got to be people who are

committed to us leaving the EU, getting the power to make our own

laws, getting the 350 million back which goes every week. So not the

Prime Minister? Prime Minister has been quite clear all along that he

will stay as the Prime Minister but there has got to be a team who are

absolutely committed to leaving the EU established in the UK as an

independent country and taking all the advantages of being the fifth

biggest economy in the world. So by definition that couldn't include the

Prime Minister or the Chancellor because they are not committed to

leave. I think there is continuity as well. That's important. The 24th

of June is my birthday. There will be a great celebration and I hope we

will hear that we will be leaving but nothing will change on that day.

I understand that. You think the team would have to include Leave

people? We are very short on time. I will just ask you, Hilary Benn, are

you worried that given that Conservative voters looked like they

could split 55/45 to come out, so those who are in Remain will need

Labour voters to come out, is enough being done to get these Labour

voters out? All the polls show that Labour voters support remaining in

the European Union and that Jeremy is making a big speech about the

case for remaining tomorrow. On your original question, which is the

position of the Prime Minister, I'd like to see him out of office very,

very quickly but the time to do that as a general election. The decision

about our place in Europe is for the next 15 years. Not my actual

question! You are getting as bad as him. The question was, are you happy

that enough is being done to get that Labour vote out? We are doing a

laugh -- a lot and we will do more because I think once the local and

mayoral elections are out of the way, people will really turn their

attention to the biggest decision we've faced for over 40 years. I

know when to quit when I'm behind! Laura, you can quit as well. From

our programme, that's all. Now, later today Tim Farron

will publish plans on how the UK could offer sanctuary to 3,000

unaccompanied child refugees. The Lib Dem leader has just returned

from the refugee camp at Idomeni Among his recommendations,

the expansion of family reunification rules and major

changes to the foster Tim Farron, welcome. In recent

months, the Government's doubled the funding commitment to the region and

said the UK will accept more unaccompanied child refugees. Should

they be doing more? Yes, they should. I'm very much in favour of

the support that the UK Government gives to the region itself around

Syria, Lebanon and so on. What the UK Government is not doing is

helping a single one of those refugees trapped in Europe and the

ones I met yesterday, almost all of them were families. I met very many

small children and they are trapped now because the failure to make the

EU and Turkey deal work properly, which David Cameron bears some

response ability for, means you've now got thousands and thousands of

families trapped in squalid and desperate circumstances and in need

of help and what we've been saying for more than six months now is that

police the UK Government could do for those refugees are stranded in

Europe is to help some of, 3000, of the unaccompanied child refugees

that are currently in Europe. There are about 30,000 at the moment and

we know at least 10,000 have gone missing in the hands of traffickers,

those people who, as children, will very now often be sublet to

exploitation of the most horrific kind.

We have shown some pictures of you at that refugee camp and there has

also been news from that area where Macedonian police have tried to

disperse a crowd of refugees who were tearing at barbed wire,

separating the Idomeni camp on the Greek side of the border from the

camp and we can show some pictures about now. How tense was the

situation with refugees when you were there? Very tense. I went right

up to the fence, which incidentally was erected in 48 hours by the

Macedonian authorities, a huge fence, and it shows what authorities

can do when they put their minds to it in a short period, reminding us

that if we really want to help 3000 orphaned children we could do it

quickly. My experience there was of real tension, there were armoured

vehicles, walking to the fence weapons were pointed through the

side of them at us. There was a real sense that there is great attention.

What has happened, Idomeni was a place where people who were making

their way north to join family and friends in Germany and Sweden for

example, would stop for a night on their way and there were a few

hundred people at any given time but now there are 15,000. It is squalid

and tense and the overwhelming majority are families and there are

hundreds and thousands of young children. This is an issue about

unaccompanied child refugees who are a huge risk to traffic smugglers and

criminals. Should the government be doing more to help them

specifically? We are talking about 30,000 unaccompanied child refugees.

I think what Tim has explained is very interesting but we have to be

incredibly careful not just taking pure, lonely children from eight

site in Europe where they are safer than they would be in Syria because

that could act as temptation for children to be sent. Are they safe

in Europe if they are alone when we have talked about people smugglers,

they could just disappear, should we not be focusing our attention? It is

incredibly fraught but the current policy is to take children with

their families from the border with Syria where they are in real danger.

Tim has seen the camp on the Greek Macedonian border and they are

probably at less risk there than on the Syrian border. Do you accept

that? We are talking about difficult choices. We should be doing our bit.

We have been arguing for a long time as Tim has that we should be taking

unaccompanied children. The 30,000 he is talking about. I think the

figure was 3000. If it was our children who found themselves in

that situation, separated from their parents, would we want other

countries to say, we will bring you in? We have always had a

disagreement with the government on this because it is right that we are

putting a lot into humanitarian aid to support people in the region but

from talking to refugees myself, those who have made that dangerous

journey to come to Europe, we should not penalised them by saying we will

not offer shelter to those who are vulnerable to have made it as well

as those in the camps in the region. Tim Farron, thank you very much.

Now, if you've been concentrating over the past few days you may have

noticed the latest fad to sweep Westminster -

All those fascinating details about politicians' income, taxable

But have our guests been paying attention to the deluge

It's time to play, whose tax return is it anyway.

In 2014 this MP's salary was half what the Prime Minister makes -

though that may not be the case anymore.

They also earned ?1,350 from delivering lectures

and ?500 from taking part in surveys.

Who is it? Jeremy Corbyn. You have been concentrating!

Leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn.

This politician earned just under ?105,000 before tax,

They claimed just under ?12,000 in non-taxable expenses,

Nicola Sturgeon. You can be a bit more enthusiastic, you are right!

Let's stay with Scotland but make it a bit more tricky.

The leaders of three other Scottish parties also released their tax

They all earn the same but one underpaid their tax by ?3.20.

No! None! They don't know who the leaders are!

It's Scottish Conservatives leader Ruth Davidson,

who declared she still owed the tax payer ?3.20 in the self-assessment

Back in Westminster, this politician reduced his taxable

income from his salary to fund a bigger pension pot.

Perhaps they learnt about that from Chairman

Yes, it's Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell.

And the answer to the year was 2006. If you press that button we will

find out who has won... Well done. Very skilful. This is our winner,

congratulations. I have never been there. We will have an awayday!

The one o'clock news is starting over on BBC One now.

Jo will be here at noon tomorrow with all the big

I will be back tomorrow night on BBC just after Question Time I hope you

can join us for all of that. Let BBC Two whisk you away

to a world of luxury, boasting an impressive

celebrity clientele... I've seen somebody spend

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