Margaret Hodge

Hodge made the Public Accounts Committee famous from 2010 to 2015 with hearings into the tax affairs of Google, Amazon and Starbucks, telling Google's executive that the firm was 'devious, calculating and, in my view, unethical'. Behind the soundbites, the committee's sustained work on HMRC's 'sweetheart deals' with large firms fed directly into the diverted profits tax of 2015 and the push for public country-by-country reporting. Her criticism of HMRC's leadership was itself contested by officials.