David Cameron blasts ‘deeply hurtful’ claims against his dad as he is grilled by MPs

DAVID CAMERON hit out at “deeply hurtful and profoundly untrue allegations” against his late father as he faced a grilling by MPs over his financial affairs.

The Prime Minister today made a statement to the House of Commons, having last week seen himself dragged into a global offshore tax avoidance scandal.

The leak of millions of legal papers, dubbed the ‘Panama Papers’, included details of Mr Cameron’s late father’s Panama-based Blairmore Holdings fund.

Mr Cameron admitted to MPs he had handled the political row badly, after he took three days to confess he had previously bought and sold shares in Blairmore, earning him thousands of pounds.

The Prime Minister said: "I accept all of the criticisms for not responding more quickly to these issues last week but as I said I was angry about the way my father's memory was being traduced.”

But the Tory leader, who has since published his tax returns going back six years, insisted funds such as Blairmore are commonplace.

He said Blairmore was set up overseas as it was “trading predominantly in dollar securities”.

He added: “There are thousands of these investment funds and many millions of people in Britain who own shares, many of whom hold them through investment funds or unit trusts.

“Such funds including those listed outside the UK are included in the pension funds of local government, most of Britain’s largest companies and indeed even some trade unions.”

Mr Cameron then made a thinly-veiled reference to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, the MP for Islington North, as he suggested even his local council was likely to have “these sorts of overseas investments”.

The Prime Minister also addressed questions over a £200,000 gift from his mother, which followed the £300,000 inheritance he received after the 2010 death of his father Ian.

The payment from Mary Cameron, revealed when the Tory leader published his tax returns going back six years over the weekend, triggered claims the Prime Minister was trying to escape inheritance tax.

The money will only become liable to inheritance tax of up to 40 per cent if Mr Cameron's mother dies within seven years of handing over the sum.

There is no suggestion that they have broken any rules.

Mr Cameron told MPs parents should not be embarrassed about passing money on to their children and insisted it was something "fully recognised" in the tax system.

"There is an established system in this country," he said.

"Far from people being embarrassed about passing things to their children, like wanting to keep a family home within the family, I believe it's a natural human instinct and something that should be encouraged.

"As for parents passing money to their children while they are still alive, it is something that tax rules fully recognise.

"Many parents want to help their children when they buy their first car, get a deposit for their first home or face the costs of starting a family.

"It's entirely natural that parents should want to do these things and again it's something that we should not just defend but we should proudly support."

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn dismissed Mr Cameron's statement as a "masterclass in the art of distraction" and accused the Prime Minister of failing to appreciate the public anger over the "scandal of destructive global tax avoidance" revealed by the Panama Papers.

He said: "What they have driven home is what many people have increasingly felt — there is now one rule for the super-rich and another for the rest.

"I'm honestly not sure that the Prime Minister fully appreciates the anger that is out there over this injustice."

Mr Cameron attacked Labour as the “the enemy of aspiration” while he mocked Mr Corbyn over earlier suggestions he had ‘lost’ his own tax return.

The Labour leader copied the Prime Minister in publishing his tax return just moments before Mr Cameron addressed MPs.

The Prime Minister said: "You accused me of a distraction. I have to say I think the biggest distraction today has been waiting for your tax return, which we finally got I think published at about 3.35pm after this session had begun.

"How incredibly convenient that no-one could scrutinise it."

Influential Tory backbencher Andrew Tyrie, who chairs the House of Commons Treasury committee, insisted Mr Cameron hadn’t done anything wrong “except possibly to comment on the Jimmy Carr case".

Comedian Mr Carr was branded “morally wrong” by Mr Cameron for seeking to avoid taxes amid a 2012 scandal.

But the Prime Minister today sought to play down his previous criticism of Mr Carr, telling MPs: “To be fair to Jimmy Carr, as soon as it was pointed out that he was in a scheme to artificially reduce his income he immediately changed his arrangements.

"He made that very clear and I pay tribute to him for doing that."