PM Admits Owning Shares In Dad's Offshore Fund

David Cameron's admission that he owned, sold and made a profit on shares held in a controversial fund before he became PM has prompted a Labour MP to call for him to resign.

Labour MP and Treasury Select Committee member John Mann - who has been a high-profile campaigner for more tax transparency - suggested Mr Cameron "has no choice but to resign" and called him a "hypocrite"

And Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson said the PM may need to quit and has more questions to answer.

He told Sky News: "He has to be fully transparent. It's no good just saying he's going to publish his tax returns because that won't show what his investment portfolio was and we need to know that now."

Mr Watson added: "He's condemned other people in public life for being morally wrong whilst knowing he's had investments in these kind of schemes himself and that shows double standards and people don't like that."

Mr Cameron last night admitted for the first time he held shares in the fund set up by his late father.

The Prime Minister has faced questions this week over his family's tax affairs after details of Ian Cameron's investment fund were reported as part of the Panama Papers leak.

Number 10 has said he will publish his own tax returns "in the coming weeks".

Mr Cameron has previously suggested he was prepared to publish his tax returns - including in an interview with Sky News in 2012 - but is yet to do so.

Downing Street initially said his family's tax affairs were a private matter before saying the PM had no offshore funds and trusts, and then making clear the family would not benefit in future.

In response to a question from Sky's Faisal Islam at an event on Wednesday, the PM said: "I have no shares, no offshore trusts, no offshore funds, nothing like that."

Now in his fifth statement on the matter, Mr Cameron said he and his wife sold shares worth more than £30,000 in Blairmore Holdings six years ago.

The couple bought their holding in April 1997 for £12,497 and sold it in January 2010 for £31,500, according to Downing Street.

The PM said the pair's profit was "subject to all the UK taxes in the normal ways" and it was just below the threshold at which capital gains tax would have applied.

The annual personal allowance for an individual in 2009-10 was £10,100 - meaning jointly the profit was just outside the threshold.

He also said his father left him £300,000, adding: "I obviously can't point to every source of every bit of the money."

According to The Guardian, papers leaked from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca are said to suggest Ian Cameron ran a fund that avoided having to pay tax in Britain by hiring Bahamas residents to sign its paperwork.