Prime Minister David Cameron wrote to the Cayman Islands and nine other U.K. territories to request action to tackle company tax evasion as Britain prepares to host the Group of Eight summit next month.

Marissa Mayer, the former Google executive who is now in charge of Yahoo, is poised to create yet another nothing-to-riches tale in the web industry with the $1.1bn (�720m) acquisition of the blogging site Tumblr.

Marks and Spencer was dragged into the intensifying corporate tax avoidance row on Sunday night with allegations that its online sales operation was operated in a similar way to that of Amazon to minimise payments to the UK Treasury.

Helped by the warmer weather, footfall on the high-street rose 3.4pc year-on-year in April, the biggest increase since the run-up to Chrismtas in 2011.

A UK Treasury analysis paper will say an independent Scotland could have "significant difficulties" providing protection for savers.