HM Revenue and Customs

Part of Opposition Day — [2nd Allotted Day] – in the House of Commons at 1:20 pm on 28 November 2007.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of George Osborne George Osborne Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer 1:20, 28 November 2007

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The involvement of senior officials is not the only inconsistency between what the Chancellor said to the House and what now appears to be the case. He told us that the reason that he had delayed telling the public and Parliament about the loss of personal data was—I quote from his statement—that

"the banks were adamant that they wanted as much time as possible to prepare".

He said:

"Some small institutions asked for a couple of weeks".—[ Hansard, 20 November 2007; Vol. 467, c. 1102-1110]

The British Bankers Association issued a press release the moment he sat down saying that it

"must correct the statements made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his address to the House of Commons today that any bank asked for any extension to the delay in announcing the security breach by HMRC...At no point did the banks request a period of weeks, as the Chancellor stated".

Who is telling the truth? Is it the banking system or the Chancellor? Is it the e-mails from the NAO or the Chancellor? I guess that the public will decide.

The public will also decide on the third issue that needs addressing today: HMRC's systemic failure to look after people's personal information over a number of years. The Prime Minister went to great lengths to deny that failure when he was questioned by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition at Prime Minister's questions last week—and we know why. The Prime Minister presided over this department and its predecessors for longer than anyone in the past 100 years, so he knows that if there is evidence of systemic failure, the blame lies with him.

The evidence is compelling. In September 2005, an unencrypted CD-ROM containing the bank details of taxpayers went missing. What did the Treasury say at the time? It said:

"This is a one-off incident...we are urgently reviewing our procedures to make sure this type of incident does not happen again".

Of course it did happen again. In May, the details of 42,000 families who are claiming tax credits were sent to the wrong people. The Treasury then said

"we have robust procedures in place to protect information provided by" the public. But of course they did not, because earlier this month the national insurance details of a further 15,000 people were lost on a CD-ROM. The Government then said:

"we have reviewed our arrangements and introduced safeguards to prevent this happening again".

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury for bringing to my attention the case of Mr. Leaver, a constituent of his from Bicester. In July, Her Majesty's inspector of taxes sent two letters apparently intended for Buckinghamshire county council to his home address in Bicester. They contained the names and national insurance numbers of all the employees who had recently left that council. Mr. Leaver phoned Her Majesty's inspector of taxes and was told, "We are very grateful for your telling us this. We will correct the error." He has subsequently received five more letters. My hon. Friend raised this with HMRC, which confirmed that that was the case, and having looked into the matter, it said:

"We did indeed hold an incorrect address for Buckinghamshire County Council."