They may or may not speak to a human being, but even if they did, it is at odds with the reality of the way people view HMRC and the willingness with which they take the opportunity to speak to it. The concept that it is alien to HMRC to send out notices that people do not want is curious. Most of the notices HMRC sends out are not particularly well received by the person who receives them, but that is not the point. The notices are sent out because HMRC and the Government think that is in the public interest. I do not find the argument particularly compelling.
The Government say that they are not sure that having an automatic notice is the best way to increase awareness, but they have not set out any convincing arguments about what better ways there are, other than talking in vague terms about marketing tools. My experience of many marketing campaigns by the Government is that they are almost all total failures, even when a huge amount of money is spent, advertising agencies engaged, posters drafted and so on.
Saving Gateway Accounts Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Lord Newby
(Liberal Democrat)
in the House of Lords on Thursday, 2 April 2009.
It occurred during Debate on bills
and
Committee proceeding on Saving Gateway Accounts Bill.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
709 c305GC 
Session
2008-09
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords Grand Committee
Subjects
Librarians' tools
Timestamp
2024-04-22 02:29:10 +0100
URI
http://data.parliament.uk/pimsdata/hansard/CONTRIBUTION_546258
In Indexing
http://indexing.parliament.uk/Content/Edit/1?uri=http://data.parliament.uk/pimsdata/hansard/CONTRIBUTION_546258
In Solr
https://search.parliament.uk/claw/solr/?id=http://data.parliament.uk/pimsdata/hansard/CONTRIBUTION_546258