A Bill to impose duties on the Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility in respect of the announcement of fiscally significant measures.
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West and Pudsey)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many people worked for the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce in each month between April 2021 and December 2022.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
At Spring Budget 2021 the Government announced a £100 million investment into the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce of 1,250 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) staff up to March 2023. The taskforce was established to extend HMRC’s work to address fraud and error in the COVID support schemes that they administered (Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, Self-Employment Income Support Scheme, and Eat Out to Help Out). The table below shows the month-by-month breakdown of resources deployed in the taskforce from April 2021 to end of October 2022. HMRC are unable to provide more recent data as this is still being assured.
Table 1: Monthly breakdown of FTE staff deployed to taskforce:
Period | Apr 2021 | May 2021 | Jun 2021 | Jul 2021 | Aug 2021 | Sep 2021 | Oct 2021 | Nov 2021 | Dec 2021 | Jan 2022 | Feb 2022 | Mar 2022 |
Total FTE | 908 | 1,018 | 1,216 | 1,291 | 1,228 | 1,256 | 1,180 | 1,184 | 1,145 | 1,101 | 1,096 | 1,142 |
Period | Apr 2022 | May 2022 | Jun 2022 | Jul 2022 | Aug 2022 | Sep 2022 | Oct 2022 |
Total FTE | 1,180 | 1,155 | 1,246 | 1,203 | 1,230 | 1,232 | 1,187 |
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West and Pudsey)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has been made aware of any security breaches in his Department relating to Ministers in his Department during his time in post.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
It is a long-established practice of the Treasury not to comment either on whether a security breach has been identified, or any subsequent outcome.
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West and Pudsey)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what procedures are in place to prevent the use of personal mobile phones for government business in his Department.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
There is a place for the use of a variety of digital channels in fast moving modern environments. Ministers will have informal conversations from time to time, in person or remotely, and relevant content from such discussions is passed back to officials. They will also use a variety of digital communications channels for personal, political and Parliamentary matters.
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West and Pudsey)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will provide details of any government business he has conducted from his own personal devices or accounts.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
The Cabinet Office has published guidance to departments on the use of private email that covers how information is held for the purposes of access to information, and how formal decisions are recorded for the official record. This guidance is being updated to reflect changes in technology and ways of working and will be published by the Cabinet Office in due course.
It is Government policy not to comment on individual Ministers’ security arrangements. Ministers receive support and expert advice to help them meet their obligations in the most appropriate and secure fashion. That includes regular security briefings for Ministers, and advice on protecting their personal data and mitigating cyber threats.