My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. I agree and I shall come on to that a little later in my speech. We have had an ever-moving, ever-changing story about what the Government or members of the Government knew or did not know and the questions that they asked or did not ask about HSBC. That goes to my central issue of trust: trust is being undermined in our tax system, which absolutely depends on it.
The Government have tried to trumpet their record in recent days, but I am afraid that it is not the great source of pride that they have been trying to pretend it is. We know that the tax gap—that is, the difference
between how much tax should be collected and how much is collected—rose from £31 billion in 2009-10 to £33 billion in 2011-12 and now to £34 billion in 2012-13, which is the information available for the latest year.