Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the requirement for people filing VAT returns under Making Things Digital to use a private company's software, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of the contract for that software; and what assessment he has made of the potential risk of data breach.

HMRC has not made contracts or paid software developers for the provision of Making Tax Digital (MTD) compatible software.

However, software developers intending to develop MTD compatible software must comply with HMRC’s Terms of Use, which set out strict requirements they must meet, including in terms of cyber-security and the security, storage, management and processing of customer data. HMRC monitors data sent to its systems for fraud prevention, and to ensure that customer data is safe. The Terms of Use are available here:

https://developer.service.hmrc.gov.uk/api-documentation/docs/terms-of-use.