Speeches by Hatton.

“ So your current estimate that it is just a third of a billion.”

“ I still think we could be a lot more ambitious. To understand how we close the tax gap, do we not also need to understand a bit more about the offshore tax gap? Do you agree, Sir Jim, that to close the tax gap altogether, we need to know how much is held in an offshore tax haven? Are you able to give me any vague…”

“ Forgive me for interrupting, Sir Jim, but £39.8 billion is sort of the equivalent of our MOJ and Department for Transport budgets combined, so would it not be more helpful if there was a clearer aspiration for how much it is going to be reduced by—rather than maintained at—and for when you are going to …”

“ As we have established, the tax gap—the difference between the amount of tax that should be paid and what is actually paid—does sit at a large sum, just shy of £40 billion. Therefore, I am a little bit concerned, Sir Jim, that the language that you used today was around “flatlining” and maintaining it. I kno…”

“ But they do. Over 40,000 customers did get to that point with no warning, and it is infuriating.”

“ I want to quickly touch on something, because Nesil is making such an important point. Nearly 40,000 calls were cut off after being forced to wait 70 minutes. That is not just “not ideal”; it is bloody awful. Why do you not warn those 40,000 people? Surely that would be a simple thing that you could do. If you ar…”

“ That is quite a worrying statistic: it suggests that fraud and error is quite commonplace when it comes to these relief schemes. Going back to my first question, do you think there is concrete evidence that this relief scheme is providing good value for money? Does this scheme, much like many others, provide poor…”

“ Could you explain in a bit more detail how you reached that estimate of 17.6%?”

“ Okay. I think a lot of people across the country would question that reasoning and would want to see those who deliberately avoid tax face prosecution. I will move on to the impact of policy changes around corporation tax and research and development relief schemes. There are two key questions I would like to und…”

“ You need a tough deterrent, surely? People will get away with avoiding tax if they do not think anyone is going to come after them. If the numbers have collapsed drastically from 691 to 344, the deterrent disappears altogether.”

“ I have two quick questions on something Sarah rightly raised. Those numbers are quite appalling reading, collapsing from 691 investigations down to 344. First, why are you not using all the extra resources that you have already told us you have to increase the number of criminal prosecutions? Secondly—our constit…”

“ With a figure as tiny as that, you cannot help but walk away thinking that your estimates are not based on accurate information.”

“ Okay. Let us move on to this point around support for vulnerable customers. Last February, this Committee found that HMRC customer service had reached an all-time low. Do you not agree that this sorry state of affairs has been very, very damaging to your credibility, so there needs t…”

“ Let us move on. The most recent HMRC customer service report estimates that “as many as 20% of customers need assistance using its digital services. It is not clear that HMRC has…set aside sufficient capacity” or expertise “to provide” additional “customer support”. Can you try again to reassure this Co…”

“ Could you go into a little bit more detail? What are you doing to ensure that those 7 million taxpayers are not shut out of accessing HMRC services? How are you assisting them to use digital services where they can?”

“ Finally, I want to circle back to where I started with this part of our session. Looking at what happened during the spring, the clear damage that did do to the credibility of HMRC, and the comments that you made, Sir Jim, after that happened, would you accept that perhaps …”

“ Jim, why do you keep using the language of “no plans”? As the chief executive of HMRC, can you not give us greater clarity?”

“ Thank you, Chair. Jim, when you did it at the start of this year, it was a calamity. When you did those pilots last year, which Rebecca has highlighted, it was with very little notice. Why can you not just say, “We are not going to do it”?”

“ But while you are the chief executive.”

“ Thank you.”