TX: Jeff Randall’s Christmas Dinner 19:00 Thursday 20^th December 2012

Guests :

·         Jill McDonald, UK Managing Director, McDonalds

·         Paul Walsh, Chief Executive, Diageo

·         Sir Charles Dunstone, Chairman, Carphone Warehouse and Talk Talk Group

Sky's News Presenter Jeff Randall's guests this year for Christmas dinner at the Gherkin are three of Britain's most high profile and influential business leaders.

They reflect on a year which saw the Olympics light up London and British banks fined for fiddling rates as well as paying billions of pounds in compensation for failing customers.

Over recent weeks, business has come in for particularly heavy criticism from politicians and campaigners over tax. Foreign multinationals such as Starbucks, Google and Amazon have all been singled out for failing to pay their fair share of UK corporation tax.

On the programme, Jill McDonald, UK Managing Director of US fast food giant McDonald's, admits "customers want business to pay their fair share" but warns that this is an issue which is in "danger of spinning a little out of control" due to the negative tone of the debate.

She tells Jeff Randall that she's concerned "all businesses are tarred with the same brush."

Jill McDonald adds: "One man’s efficient tax planning is another’s tax avoidance. The law does need to be looked at. At McDonald’s we pay what we would consider to be our fair share."

McDonald's, which employs over 90,000 people in the UK, paid £42 million in UK corporation tax last year.

Jeff's other guests around the table for turkey and all the trimmings are Paul Walsh, Chief Executive of Diageo, the world's biggest spirits company which owns such well known brands such as Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff and Guinness, and Sir Charles Dunstone, Chairman of Carphone Warehouse and Talk Talk Group.  

Paul Walsh, Chief Executive of Diageo, tells the programme that tax is a complex issue for a global operation such as his own. While the UK contributed only 7% of Diageo's total sales last year, it paid more than a billion pounds in UK corporation tax.

Jeff Randall's Christmas Dinner is broadcast tonight [Thursday December 20] at 7pm on Sky News and is repeated over the festive period.

It is also available on Sky On Demand and the Sky News for iPad App.

Ends