Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on what date the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce became operational.

At Spring Budget 2021, the Government announced a £100 million investment into a Taxpayer Protection Taskforce to significantly extend HMRC’s work to tackle fraud and error in the COVID-19 support schemes that HMRC administered (Self Employment Income Support Scheme, Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Eat Out to Help Out).

The taskforce became operational from April 2021 and HMRC committed around 1,200 full time equivalent staff (FTE) to recovering money paid out to incorrect and fraudulent claims.

Before the taskforce was established, HMRC deployed 500 FTE onto post payment compliance work on the COVID schemes, following Royal Assent of the Finance Act which provided investigatory powers on 22 July 2020.

The taskforce will allow HMRC to undertake at least 30,000 compliance checks in total across three years, up to 2022-23. They are expected to recover around £800 million-£1 billion over two years in addition to the £536 million recovered during 2020-21.