THE Foot Review of offshore financial centres will do little to tackle tax haven activity, according to campaigner Richard Murphy.

The Tax Justice Network founder said the review was disappointing and that the wrong man had been appointed to do the job.

‘Michael Foot was always the wrong man to do this job – how could a man who makes his living from offshore have ever done this job?’

Mr Murphy said that because Mr Foot (pictured) was part of the UK Financial Services Authority, he was one of those most responsible for setting up the system of bank regulation that spectacularly failed.

‘And just as the rules he delivered at the FSA were useless, so are the offshore rules he is now promoting. They were never designed to really regulate financial abuse and were never intended to stop tax abuse, so encouraging compliance with them now is absurd.’

Mr Murphy said change would be seen only if Mr Foot had demanded automatic information exchange, the introduction of country-by-country reporting and large increases in the transparency of offshore structures so that the accounts, beneficial ownership and the identity of management of all offshore entities should be available on public record. He added that there should be massive penalties for incorrect recording.

However, he said the report did seek to deliver some small punches in demanding that places such as Guernsey raise more tax, which was right, but the focus of the report was wrong.