HM Revenue and Customs

We have had a valuable debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), the Chair of the Treasury Committee. We have had the benefit of his expertise and that of other Committee members, including my old friend, the hon. Member for Leeds East (Mr Mudie) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman). We also heard from a member of the Public Accounts Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ian Swales). We have heard about the experiences of the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) and had the benefit of the considerable tax expertise of my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke). We have heard about some of the difficulties of a border area from the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and also heard from the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Gregg McClymont), whose constituency has the largest tax office in the UK. We have also heard from the hon. Members for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) and for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who both have a long-standing interest in the matter. There is clearly a consensus across the House that HMRC is a hugely important organisation that has a valuable role to play through the service it provides to taxpayers and tax credit claimants and its contribution in dealing with the difficulties in the public finances. We have heard articulated a widespread concern about a number of aspects of its performance. As the hon. Member for Leeds East pointed out, that has been a consistent concern for a number of years. We have heard a little about some of the causes of the problems. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, among others, talked about the difficulties of the merger, and my hon. Friends the Members for Chichester and for Dover talked about tax complexity. The hon. Member for Luton North talked about the challenges created by the introduction of tax credits and HMRC's responsibility in that area. Those issues have contributed to a number of the problems. In the time available, I will touch on the various issues that have been raised. A number of Members mentioned staff morale. The survey numbers are pretty shocking, as HMRC does very poorly on that. My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester referred to HMRC staff as the salt of the earth, and talked about their dedication. I visit a lot of HMRC offices and find that the staff are very dedicated and committed to their jobs. The problem is that they do not feel a strong connection with HMCR or the sense of loyalty and affection to the organisation that they might, but there is a desire to do their jobs very well. There is sometimes a feeling that HMRC staff are kicked around a bit and that some of the criticism is unfair—happily, I can exclude all Members who have participated in the debate from that charge. To be balanced and fair to HMRC, we should acknowledge some of its successes. Just over a month ago, for example, they successfully dealt with a record number of self-assessments by the self-assessment deadline.