Clause 19
Finance (No. 2) Bill
2:30 pm
Mark Francois (Shadow Minister, Treasury; Rayleigh, Conservative)
The hon. Gentleman has half a point. We know that the fraud has been mutating and that there is a constant battle between what is now the HMRC and the fraudsters. We know that the fraud is highly organised, as I shall explain in a moment. However, given the scale of the losses that we now face, the Government could have taken firmer action earlier. To put it simply, if the problem has reached a stage at which it is now affecting our official trade statistics each month, surely we should have done something about it earlier. That is not an unreasonable point to make.