DAVID Cameron came out fighting in a statement to Parliament as he defended his tax affairs and said the Government should protect "the right of every British citizen to make money lawfully".

Speaking to MPs in the House of Commons yesterday, the Prime Minister and Witney MP said he followed rules for registering shareholdings "in full" and was "very happy" to provide more information to the parliamentary watchdog if necessary.

But announcing new measures to make it harder for people to hide the proceeds of corruption offshore, he said it was right to "tighten the law and change the culture to crack down on evasion and aggressive avoidance".

His comments followed a furore over the Panama Papers data leak and the revelation that Mr Cameron and his wife Samantha made a £19,000 profit on shares in an offshore trust set up by his late father, Ian Cameron.

The Prime Minister said he sold his shares in 2010 because he did not want "any conflict of interest" and, after a torrid week of headlines, admitted handling media scrutiny badly because he was "angry about the way my father's memory was being traduced".

He added: "I know he was hard-working man and a wonderful dad and I'm proud of everything he did to build a business and provide for his family."

Mr Cameron – who published his own tax return at the weekend – also said it was right that those who aspired to run the nation's finances declare their own tax affairs, but said this should not apply to all MPs.

In the hours before the Commons statement, Chancellor George Osborne published his tax return and Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, published his in the minutes after it had started.

But Professor Judith Freedman, a renowned expert on tax law at Oxford University, said the row about Mr Cameron's tax affairs was "a nonsense" that threatened to overshadow the real need for reform.

She told the Oxford Mail: "As far as we can see, he paid tax due on shares and holdings that happened to be offshore and there is no evidence that everything was not disclosed.

"There will be many people who, if they have pension funds or investments, will find some elements of that will be offshore.

"He [Ian Cameron] may have been seeking a tax-efficient investment but that is the result of the structure of the tax system at the time.

"If people don't like it then we should change it – and the Government has been doing that, so it is all a bit of a nonsense".

It comes after questions were separately raised about £300,000 in inheritance Mr Cameron received from his late father and £200,000 given to him by his mother Mary.

The Prime Minister said it was "natural human instinct" for parents to want to pass things on to their children, adding that although it was right to tighten laws on tax avoidance the Government should not hamper "the right of every British citizen to make money lawfully".

His statement was described as a "masterclass in the art of distraction" by Mr Corbyn, who accused the Prime Minister of failing to appreciate the public anger over global tax avoidance.