Lord Paul: Non-dom tax is political

The former Labour peer gave up his non-dom status when the rules changed to ensure all members pay full taxes in July 2010. Five other peers refused to give up their status at the time and left the house.

Lord Paul, the independent peer, said that abolishing the tax status was the key to Britain being a “clean country” free of “corruption”.

He said that the status had become a “political thing to collect money for elections”.

He told Radio 4: “As far as I’m concerned I am all for what Ed Miliband has announced, but it is done for the wrong reasons. What we must do is make sure that the corruption doesn’t increase…

“Let us be clear and clean about our taxation which will be far better and good for our country – good for making sure there is no corruption, there is no cover-up… And we need a clean country, and I am proud of being British.”