As many as 68 parliamentarians, including six MPs have business interests in companies with links to tax havens, a freedom of information request has revealed.

Research carried out by The Guardian has found that 21 Conservative, 17 Labour, three Lib Dem and 21 cross-bench peers in the House of Lords along with six Tory MPs held director or non-executive director roles in businesses with offshore connections.

Of the six MPs, five, including the new business minister, Michael Fallon, rejected the accusation that the companies they were involved with were participating in aggressive avoidance practices.

The Commons public accounts committee chair, Margaret Hodge, however, said: 'As MPs, these individuals should be voting for proper transparency so we can see that these companies pay proper tax in the UK. The number of peers involved is bad enough. But to find that Tory MPs are setting themselves up as non-executives on companies that are connected to these places where there is such a lack of scrutiny and probity is just reprehensible and beyond belief.'

This follows a Channel 4 investigation in July that found HMRC director Phil Hodkinson to have financial interests in Guernsey-based FTSE 100 company Resolution, while another HMRC director John Spence had connections with SpicerHaart .