Speeches by Caliskan.

“About £785 million is spent on what the report refers to as the digital business group. That has increased by 18%. It is £122 million additional cost. I just want to get a sense of this. Is that cost on digital infrastructure spend or is some of that money spent on consultants, for example?”

“I want to ask a little more about the overall cost of the digital systems and why the higher spend has not lowered the overall cost of collecting taxes.”

“I note all the responses. The only thing I would say is, at a time when resources are scarce and the public is looking for more value for money, Government as a whole need to be doing more with less. I come from a local government background where, for a long time, senior officers have had to do more with less. It is h…”

“You do not feel that the organisation is too top-heavy.”

“Given that staffing costs have gone up and productivity has gone down, how can you reassure the Committee that you are delivering value for money when your important comparators, i.e. other Government Departments, are spending less on senior staff?”

“I would just like to ask about grade mix. The increase in seniority in HMRC’s workforce exceeded the increase in, for instance, the DWP’s workforce and the civil service as a whole. HMRC’s staff mix is 54% in the senior grades. That is much higher than, for instance, DWP’s, which is at 20%, and more than the civil serv…”

“It is not that 20% of the overall cost is spent on consultants giving you advice on how to deliver a digital service, for example. I ask this because there have been lots of examples in the past— perhaps not at HMRC but throughout public sector—where, when you dig deeper, you see that it is not all spent on infrastruct…”

“No, the point I am trying to make is, if you spent that money upstream as opposed to downstream, there is no question about value for money. The amount of money that is spent by HMRC is always less than the amount of return; therefore, there is always value for money. Would you be able to get even more if that £100 mil…”

“I wanted to ask about that because productivity has been a challenge. You have provided an answer in part around the delay of seeing the returns on the investment in compliance officers. I think that is how you referred to the work. Understanding whether you are getting value for money on the additional spend on staff …”

“You have spent an additional £100 million on staffing. Is that what those staff members are doing? Are they dealing with the upstream compliance or are they dealing with downstream compliance?”

“I will ask you about grading mix in a moment compared to other Government Departments. In terms of compliance and the more senior members of staff dealing with more complicated cases, as you put it, is there a focus on the upstream or the downstream? I am trying to get a sense on behalf of the Committee as to whether t…”

“Can I thank Sir Jim and his colleagues for joining the Committee today? I would like to go back to talking about the overall cost increase for HMRC, with a specific focus on staffing. I know, Sir Jim, you have already touched on some of that, but if I could just go back and probe a bit more, the overall cost has increa…”

“Sir Jim, if you have to take a day off work to be on hold to HMRC, that is a financial burden as an individual. Equally, if you are a micro or small business that is having to pick up the phone yourself as opposed to using an accountant to do that for you, that is a financial cost too, but I think that you would acknow…”

“Sure, but I am looking for reassurance that the people spend is on knowledge and delivering digital infrastructure and not on strategies and ideas.”

“I do not disagree with that, which is why the Government commitment around reform will be so critical. I sit on the Public Accounts Committee that produced the report that highlighted some of those gaps. As a Committee, we will be looking closely at the reforms that have come forward from the Government, and I would we…”

“On the point about the inability of ICBs sometimes to get things going, in my constituency it has taken the ICB nine months to procure something very similar. Does the hon. Lady agree that it is about not just their ability to pay, but their procurement processes?”

“I thank the Secretary of State for her statement. As a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I have recently heard details about the shocking state of disrepair in our courts in recent years. The most recent report identified the Nightingale courts set up under the previous Government as a way to deal with the covid…”

“May I take this opportunity to thank the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), for his work, as well as other Members who I sit on the Committee with? The financial sustainability of our national health service will have an impact on patients now and i…”

“My hon. Friend makes an important point, because health inequalities are determined by a multitude of factors and the work that local authorities do on public health is crucial too. Compare the point I made about local authorities not being able to set deficit budgets with the situation in the NHS, where every year win…”

“I will not take any interventions at this point—actually, I will.”