Dan Norris hits out at a Tory's tax evasion

Keynsham’s Labour MP Dan Norris has hit out at unpaid Tory tax spent on expensive propaganda, instead of helping fund North East Somerset schools and hospitals

An expensive publicity campaign aimed at installing London-based Conservative candidate Jacob Rees-Mogg as North East Somerset's MP is being helped with money that could otherwise have been used for schools and hospitals, it emerged this week.

A series of glossy leaflets and newsletters issued on behalf of Mr Rees-Mogg are understood to have been funded by donations to the Conservative Party by Lord Ashcroft. The Belize-based billionaire Tory donor - who is pouring millions of pounds into marginal seats like North East Somerset - was finally forced to admit this week that he has deliberately avoided paying tens of millions in UK tax.

Mr Norris said: "Lord Ashcroft deliberately failed to honour his promise, denying our country at least £180 million in unpaid tax.

"Had those millions rightly been paid in tax by the Tory donor, it could have helped thousands of ordinary local families. Instead Lord Ashcroft chose to spend it on glossy leaflets and posters in marginal constituencies. Rather than paying fair taxes like everyone else has to, he is pouring money into the Tory Party in a bid to buy the election. "

"When North East Somerset residents next see glossy propaganda issued for London-based Mr Rees-Mogg they will have a right to feel this expensive Tory campaign comes at a genuine cost. For had Ashcroft met his tax obligations, these millions could have paid for a new school building, like the one being built with Government funding at Writhlington secondary, Radstock. Or it could have been used for new NHS facilities like the excellent Keynsham Health Centre, built with £5 million Government money.”

Papers released this week under Freedom of Information legislation show that in March 2000, Lord Ashcroft promised then-Tory Leader William Hague that he would take up UK residence by the end of 2000, meaning he would then have to pay UK tax. Mr Hague then wrote to Tony Blair, then-Prime Minister, explaining Lord Ashcroft's promise. "This decision will cost him (and benefit the Treasury) tens of millions a year in tax," Hague wrote.

Mr Norris pointed out: "Nine years on, with this Tory promise unfulfilled, our NHS, our schools and our police have been denied at least £180 million, according to the Tories' own figures, by a man who has shown a lack of patriotism but a desire to interfere in politics.”

In 2005 Lord Ashcroft said that even back then he had given "well in excess of £10 million" to the Tory Party.

Leaflets issued on behalf for Jacob Rees-Mogg have already grabbed national media attention. For example, Mr Rees-Mogg had to apologise to The Sun's Trevor Kavanagh when it emerged the Tory had copied chunks of an article by the journalist into one of his leaflets, falsely claiming it as his own.

The revelations about Ashcroft's tax status may be causing further Tory embarrassment, but Lord William Rees-Mogg, father of the Tory candidates in ultra-marginal North East Somerset and marginal Somerton and Frome and, recently praised Lord Ashcroft in a Times article. "He (Ashcroft) is a first-class organiser with a modern business approach," wrote Rees-Mogg.