Labour veteran Dennis Skinner tore into the tax cover-up Tories yesterday for waging war on benefits claimants but stripping funds from departments aimed at hunting down fraud by the rich.

The Bolsover MP tackled the government’s record during an urgent debate on leaked revelations detailing the gruesome scale of tax-dodging by Britain’s rich.

Hundreds of out-of-court deals have been struck which hide the identities of those found to have defrauded the Exchequer.

An angry Mr Skinner told the Commons: “There are currently about 3,250 people examining benefit fraud while there are only 300 HMRC people examining the fraud by those that are wealthy tax-dodgers, many of whom give a lot of money to the Tory party.

“Why is it that there’s one law for the rich and one for the poor?”

That dividing line will be placed into sharp focus at a “Black and White Ball” fundraising dinner tonight where multimillionaires will hobnob with Tory frontbenchers at the five-star Grosvenor House hotel.

A host of City bigwigs and tax-dodging millionaires will be among them.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “Instead of aggressively chasing down wealthy and corporate tax-dodgers, this government has chosen to turn the screw on those who claim social security, even though fraud in the benefits system pales into insignificance compared to tax evasion.

“This latest scandal further supports our demand that HMRC must be properly resourced.

“Collecting even a fraction of the tens of billions lost every year would change the debate about public spending overnight.”

Tax expert Richard Murphy said the government’s light-touch approach to the financial criminals sent a message that “bankers, tax accountants and their wealthy clients are above the law.

“At the same time as it was being decided it was worthwhile pursuing very large numbers of people for benefits-related issues, including non-payment, through the court system it was decided that it was not a good use of that system to pursue wealthy people and their professional advisers for proven deliberate large-scale criminal acts of theft,” he said.