Panama papers: Senior Tories under pressure to reveal more about tax affairs

Senior Conservative politicians including George Osborne, Boris Johnson and Sajid Javid have come under growing pressure to publish their income and tax returns after David Cameron become the first Prime Minister to put his personal financial information in the public domain.

The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn upped the ante in debate over politicians financial transparency when he said voters must “know what influences are at work” in the decisions taken by public figures. Mr Corbyn suggested there should be a public debate about the extent to which new disclosure rules should be enforced, but added: “There has to be trust in people in public office. You have to know what they are earning, where it comes from and what influences come as a result of that.”

Mr Cameron will face the Labour leader in the Commons on Monday as he tries to get on the front foot over his personal involvement in the Panama Papers. He is expected to announce new rules making it a criminal offence for companies to help their employees evade tax.

But Mr Corbyn's stance and the decision by Mr Cameron to publish his own tax details will put intense pressure on other senior Cabinet figures to follow the Prime Minister’s lead.

In particular Mr Osborne, who as Chancellor is responsible for the tax system, and others Tories hoping to succeed Mr Cameron are expected to follow suit in the coming months.

A Treasury source said: “We have been clear that the Chancellor has never had any offshore shareholdings or other interests. His income and interests are straightforward and declared publicly: his salary, rental income from a property in London and a shareholding in his father's firm, Osborne and Little. He is always happy to consider ways to ‎offer even more transparency.”

Zac Goldsmith, the multi-millionaire Tory candidate to be the next London Mayor, has already published his tax returns for the period since he became an MP.

In an attempt to wrest back the agenda from Labour on the tax issue, Mr Cameron will announce on Monday that firms that aid tax evasion by their employees will in future be held criminally responsible. Legislation, to be introduced in Parliament later this year, will create the new offence, which will mean that firms will be held criminally liable if they fail to stop their employees from facilitating tax evasion.

Mr Cameron is expected to give details of the plans in the Commons when he faces his critics for the first time.

Documents released by Downing Street on Saturday showed Mr Cameron was given a £200,000 gift by his mother following his father's death – which could potentially avoid inheritance tax.

Number 10 said that the two payments of £100,000 in 2011 came on top of the £300,000 Mr Cameron inherited from his father Ian as the Prime Minister's mother Mary attempted to "balance" the sums received by their children.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell told BBC Radio 5 Live: "I don't personalise politics: this is about the system, and a system whereby someone can inherit, effectively, £500,000 from his mum and dad and not pay a penny on it. I think there's something wrong in the system that allows that to happen."

But Housing Minister Brandon Lewis pointed out that the gift from Mrs Cameron to her son was no different from similar arrangements used in other families; it was just a "larger sum of money". He told BBC Radio 5 Live's Pienaar's Politics: "There are many thousands of people [who do this], at different levels and different amounts of money, whether it's grandparents giving their grandchildren a bit of money so they can see them enjoy it while they are alive – that happens every day."