Speeches by Hatton.

“ If I might press, I will go back to my original question. What would good look like and what would those numbers look like? I do not think the numbers in this report—the figure of seven specific phoenix cases or that other figure of 6,274—are good numbers. I certainly hope you do not think they are. Wha…”

“ Are you not concerned, Sir Jim, that those in a position to conduct very aggressive tax planning or, indeed, tax evasion are the most difficult to identify and that, in fact, small and medium-sized enterprises are the easiest to identify? Those who have tax experts, accountants&…”

“ That is the main concern of this Committee. The Hair Council has submitted written information for this Committee to consider, raising specific concerns around the rent-a-chair model, which looks to split workers into individual, self-employed entities a…”

“ I have just one final question there. It would be great if you could offer reassurances to the Hair Council. I have had a barber in my constituency in Weymouth, south Dorset, raise this specific concern. The legitimate businesses that are doing the right thing and…”

“ As an initial question, why do you not monitor the tax gap by sector, particularly in relation to the online retail sector?”

“ I will just park that for a second, but it is quite concerning that we do not have estimates by sector, particularly for the online retail space. Sitting alongside that, Sir Jim, we spoke at our last session about the offshore tax gap. I have the transcript in front of me, where…”

“ Just to be clear, you stand by the estimates from HMRC that the lion’s share of tax evasion is committed by small and medium-sized businesses.”

“ When I was studying for my GCSEs and still had a full head of hair, there were approximately 25,000 hair and beauty businesses in the country. Today, that number has doubled and now stands at approximately 50,000, and yet the number of businesses in that sector that are registered for VAT has,&#xa0…”

“Recent BBC news analysis found that burning household rubbish in waste incinerators is the dirtiest way that the UK produces power. When might the relevant Minister update the House on exactly how and when we will move away from harmful incinerators? Will the Government support my campaign to implement a moratorium on …”

“Thank you.”

“To answer my question, Sir Matthew, did you get the balance right? That was the question. Do you think, looking at the fiasco that has taken place at Northeye and looking at the mess of the Bibby Stockholm barge, that the balance was right—yes or no?”

“Looking at the Northeye site and many of the other larger schemes and projects that were under way, there does seem to be a pattern that has developed. Northeye cost at least £15.4 million. We now know it was never operational and is likely to be sold. The Bibby Stockholm, north of £34 million, is going to be closed do…”

“Say that last bit again. You did do due diligence?”

“These are huge figures: £715 million; £34.8 million; £49 million. These are huge sums of public money. You say you did some due diligence, but here we are, some months later, and almost every one of those schemes is about to be scrapped, sold or wound down. Can you honestly say that that diligence was sufficient, consi…”

“Should you have required a direction on the others?”

“I have one final point. I am struggling to match what you say with the reality that we see in the information in front of us, which is that we have huge sums of public money being sunk into these projects, and yet they have almost all had to be abandoned because they are costing the taxpayer a fortune and delivering ne…”

“Right. So you think that the current situation was unavoidable because enough due diligence was done, or do you think insufficient diligence was done at that early stage, which has led to tens or hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money being spent on a bunch of schemes that are all now being scrapped or closed down.”

“I am aware of that, but these schemes were also found by an NAO Report to be even more expensive for the taxpayer. The Bibby Stockholm barge, in a Report earlier this year, was found to be a more expensive way of housing asylum seekers than the previous hotels that were used. I simply do not understand how you can thro…”

“To conclude, that is the problem. There was clearly a culture at the time that was very over-optimistic at the outset. Once these things started to progress, they realised that those overly optimistic assessments made at the outset, or during due diligence, were not actually in any way close to reality. It is really wo…”

“Why did you do it so many times, over and over again?”