ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now he is the first Prime Minister to release details about his taxation and he’s done so in response to a week of speculation about his family finances.  Is it enough to silence Mr Cameron’s critics though?  Well the SNP’s Westminster leader, Angus Robertson, joins me live from Speyside in his constituency and a very good morning to you Mr Robertson.  So we’ve seen the Prime Minister’s tax affairs for six years or so, it seems it’s all legal and above board, is that the end of the matter in your book?

ANGUS ROBERTSON: No, it’s not because I think there are wider issues that have still not been answered.  I have to say first of all I welcome the Prime Minister publishing these details and I know that other party leaders have said that they will do likewise. I have particular concerns about the wider UK government because of course it’s the UK Cabinet that sets the framework of legislation, that discusses what UK policy is and we have heard absolutely nothing about other members of the Cabinet.  Where is the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne?  Has he made a declaration that he has never, ever benefited from offshore trusts?  What about other Treasury ministers, have they ever benefited from offshore trusts?  I think the publishing of tax returns by the Prime Minister is welcome but it doesn’t answer these wider questions and it is something that this week they are not going to get away from and if the Prime Minister doesn’t make a statement to parliament tomorrow, the SNP is going to apply for an urgent question so he is brought before parliament to update Member of Parliament on what he has done, what his Cabinet have done and what his government intends to do in the future.

DM: Well why not, as Mr Corbyn has been suggesting today, say that all people in public life, particularly MPs, should publish their tax returns?

ANGUS ROBERTSON: Well I think all of these things need to be looked at seriously.  I think it’s a sensible thing that all of this should be reviewed.  Other countries do these things in different ways, our Scandinavian neighbours publish the returns of every single citizen so there is a debate to be had about the degree to which members of the public, in public life or in private life, have to publish their tax information.  I think in the first instance there is a public interest that the Cabinet, which has responsibility for making the rules covering taxation, tax loopholes, offshore trusts, what involvement have Cabinet members given their direct personal involvement in framing the legislative proposals of the government, what background do they have in relation to tax havens?  Have they had any connections, yes or no?  I think the public deserves to know the answer to that question.

DM: And of course in the Prime Minister’s details, these are not his actual tax returns, this is not a copy of the actual documents that he sent in to HMRC.

ANGUS ROBERTSON: I haven’t seen the format of the documents, I understand that they show the headline figures so I don't know whether it would technically be feasible to disaggregate the interest for example that has been accumulated from investments of where the sources of those interests, that interest comes from and I think that would be a source concern for everybody that wants to know, given the revelations that we’ve heard from Panama, whether politicians in the UK have been profiting from investments in offshore trusts and tax havens.  I’m not sure whether the format that the Prime Minister has published his details would answer that question but using the opportunity that I have this morning to speak to the wider public and to the UK government, I really want to take the opportunity to say that the level of public anger about this is immense.  I think the government has to act, the Prime Minister has been forced to act.  Let’s not forget, less than a week ago his spokespeople were saying this was an entirely private matter.  No it’s not, the public doesn’t think it is and I think they would agree that the Cabinet also needs to show transparency which the Prime Minister has been belatedly forced to begin to show some of.

DM: Well you know, Mr Robertson, as you say, it is a matter of public interest for those of you in public life, do any of your funds, your pension fund or any of your other investments, do they utilise in any shape or form offshore instruments?

ANGUS ROBERTSON: I have no personal investments through offshore trusts.  I receive no interest payments from anywhere.  The question that you raise in regard to pensions is one that affects absolutely all of us and I think it is a perfectly reasonable question and it is something that MPs I’m sure would wish to know about the parliamentary pension scheme, about how it is constructed in relation to tax havens, I would certainly want to know the answer to that and I think that, in conjunction with questions raised about the degree to which MPs need to be transparent about their financial affairs is something I think needs to be looked at in the round.  I am very open to that but I think it needs to be something that is looked at across the piece.  I think much in the same way that after the expenses scandal there needed to be an overhaul of things, I think there needs to be an overhaul of issues relating to tax and specifically in relation to tax havens and offshore trusts.

DM: So when can we expect to see your tax returns?

ANGUS ROBERTSON: Whenever anybody would like to see them.

DM: So you are going to publish them?

ANGUS ROBERTSON: If people want to see my tax returns … I’m sorry, it’s going to be very boring, my income is that of a parliamentarian, I have no investments ever, unlike the Prime Minister when he answered that question and did not make that clear, I have never had any investments in offshore trusts or through tax havens.  

DM: Are you sure?  Do you have any ISAs?

ANGUS ROBERTSON: No.

DM: Absolutely no tax, completely legitimate tax free funds at all?

ANGUS ROBERTSON: No.  

DM: All right, well we’ll look forward to that.  Is this something that the SNP is going to do, are the leadership, the senior figures within the Scottish National Party going to release their tax returns?

ANGUS ROBERTSON: Nicola Sturgeon has said that she will, we will do that and I’ve said that we are open to looking at how this is done across the piece of parliamentarians.  I think it is something that should be looked at, something that should be considered.  We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact though that parliamentarians already need to make declarations of their income, I think there needs to be a debate now about the degree of information that is published about people’s personal income and investments and in particular, because of the public concern and rightly so, in relation to tax havens and offshore trusts.  

DM: That is the issue as well isn’t it, particularly when you talk about tax havens and offshore deposit centres, many of them have relationships with the British Crown, overseas territories or Crown dependencies, do you think something more could be done to control and regulate them from the UK?

ANGUS ROBERTSON: Absolutely, these are technically, as you say, part of the British Crown, they are UK dependencies and I think there needs to be a much closer relationship with them to getting this situation sorted out.  At the end of the day, this isn’t going to be sorted out in terms of the global mega-rich without having international tax agreements and these international tax agreements need to also include these tax havens because so long as some can operate in certain ways that then sees trillions and trillions – I saw a figure, mind boggling, £21 trillion or dollars, whichever way you cut it a massive amount of money which has been salted away through these tax havens, denying funds to many countries and of particular concern obviously in the developing world where there are very, very limited funds.  So yes, it’s something we need to get right domestically, yes it’s something we need to get right in terms of the decision makers and in particular the governments that are making these legislative proposals but I think there needs to be an international effort to get a new system in place to make sure that our societies, our public, are not seeing public services undermined by money going elsewhere and the tax which should properly be going to fund public services at home ends up somewhere half the way around the world in a British Crown dependency.

DM: And on the issue of the damage in trust to the Prime Minister’s reputation, the polls are telling us that today, does that then almost by transfer, given that he is the face, leading the campaign to remain within the European Union, do you think it kind of damages the prospects of your side winning the referendum?

ANGUS ROBERTSON: Well I think there is a general mood of anger against a certain political elite and how it has acted, that’s the case in the UK, now it’s the case around the world, we’ve been seeing it in Iceland, we’re seeing it in other countries following on from the Panama papers scandal and there have been recent results in the rest of Europe showing that the public is wishing to kick the decision makers.  We’ve had a referendum in the last few days in the Netherlands doing exactly that.  I’m in favour of Scotland and the UK remaining part of the European Union, I think it’s beneficial to us all, I think it’s beneficial to Europe as a whole.  I would think it would be a terrific shame if the Prime Minister because of his mishandling – and he himself has admitted that he has mishandled this whole fiasco – should impress people that they leave the European Union.  To me the issues are not connected, I think that things should be looked at on their merits.  I think it’s far better that we are part of the European Union, I wish Scotland to be represented directly as an independent country within the European Union but in terms of the vote this year I want Scotland and the UK to remain in the EU and I very much hope that the Prime Minister has not endangered the chances that we have of securing that majority.

DM: Mr Robertson, thank you very much indeed.  Angus Robertson there on lovely Speyside.