John McDonnell challenged the Conservatives to take a more open and transparent approach to dealing with the crisis over tax avoidance by large multinationals. in the Chamber on Wednesday.

Following the missed opportunity to use the EU negotiations as a way to get a deal on tax avoidance across Europe, John McDonnell MP, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, wants the government to release the full details of their deal with Google, and to fully back making publicly available country-by-country-reporting (CBCR).

In an Opposition Day debate in the House of Commons on Wednesday he called on the Chancellor George Osborne to back Labour’s plan and force a vote in Parliament.

Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell MP, said:

“The past fortnight has shown that the Chancellor has missed an opportunity to not only restore public faith in our tax system, but he has also missed a major opportunity to strike a deal across the Europe on tax avoidance.

“The Chancellor could have used these negotiations to get EU wide agreement on making publicly available country-by-country-reporting by big multinationals, so that we get proper transparency of these tax deals.

“The truth is that you cannot trust the Tories when it comes to tax avoidance, because they say one thing in public and another in private. Only at the weekend we found that they were secretly telling their MEPs to oppose tax avoidance measures in Brussels while in Westminster pretending to care.

“Today’s debate offers George Osborne a real chance to stop blocking important reforms so that we can now start to begin to deal with the crisis of tax avoidance and achieve a fairer outcome for taxpayers.”