Brown on verge of deal to clean up rogue tax havens

Ten countries that offer legal shelter from high taxes are backing an agreement to disclose information about those suspected of criminal tax evasion.

They include Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Austria and Andorra.

The deal offers Mr Brown the first concrete achievement to trumpet at this week's London summit. The Prime Minister used an interview with the Evening Standard this month to pledge action against rogue states that conceal assets from the authorities and offer immunity from regulations that apply everywhere else.

France today laughed off a claim that Nicolas Sarkozy had threatened to "walk out" of the G20 summit.

They said a report that the French President could "wreck" the event as "unfounded, and like some kind of April Fool's joke".

The Times reported that Mr Sarkozy blamed "Anglo-Saxons" for the worldwide economic crisis and would fly home if his demands for tougher financial regulation were not met.

Appearing on GMTV this morning, Mr Brown sounded optimistic of a wider agreement to boost the world's big economies and confidence-building measures.

"The most important thing is that we act together," he said. "If we all act together we get twice as much effect as if we do it separately."

In a speech later, Mr Brown called on the banks to adopt "family values" in the wake of the collapse of over-complex and misleading financial assets.

Speaking to faith and charity leaders at St Paul's Cathedral, he said "honesty and fairness" should be at the heart of financial services.

"In our families we raise our children to work hard and to do their best and do their bit," he said.

"We don't reward them for taking risks that would put them or others in danger, and we don't encourage them to seek short-term gratification at the expense of long-term value." In the same way, argued Mr Brown, well-run businesses did not train their teams to invest recklessly, behave secretively or keep gambles off the books - the accusations laid against banks.

"Most people who have worked hard to build up their firm or shop don't understand why any company would give rewards for failure; or how some people have grown fabulously wealthy making failed bets with other people's money," he said.

"And so our task today is to bring the imperatives served by our financial markets into proper alignment with the values held by families and business people across our country - hard work, taking responsibility, being honest, being fair."