Dr Julian Lewis: If there is an inquiry into this matter, as I hope there will be, I would be surprised if it were not found that the whole issue boils down to a single, simple question – were people who were using these avoidance schemes and openly reporting them to the taxman adequately warned at the time by HMRC that such schemes were not approved and might lead to heavy future bills? If they were warned yet chose to proceed, they have only themselves to blame for continuing to use such schemes after the warning was given, but if they were not warned at all, then HMRC cannot reasonably expect to recover any tax whatsoever from them.

[NOTE: Speeches at this stage of the debate were restricted to just two minutes.]