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Tax Avoidance and Evasion

The answer is in the hon. Gentleman's question. The figures that I have given show the scale of progress that could be made towards achieving the millennium development goals, and the point that he raises is very important. We are considering African countries. Zambia has some of the richest deposits of copper in the world, but it failed to benefit at all from the commodity boom between 2003 and 2008. Why? Because some multinational companies pursued aggressive tax avoidance strategies by pushing for special tax breaks and keeping mining contracts secret. In a country in which just 2 per cent. of people in rural areas have access to clean drinking water, there is an urgent need for more tax revenue. The concept of corporate social responsibility rings particularly hollow in the context of the fact that 98 per cent. of people in rural areas of Zambia do not have clean drinking water.