Speeches by Kane.

“Can we explore that a little further? If these are critical systems, what is the barrier to doing more? I take the point that it is disproportionate to use all the resources to do assurance, but if these are critical functions, is it an issue of resource? Would you do more if you had more resource?”

“We will cover legacy IT in a minute, so let us stick with GovAssure. It seems like a good idea and a good approach, but what I am trying to work out is this. If we assume that it is a good approach from year one, it is going to be an excellent approach from year x, but what is year x? When does it start to become a sit…”

“I want to talk about GovAssure, so let me set the scene. Paragraph 2.8 of the NAO Report states: “In April 2023, GSG started agreeing with departments clear and risk-based cyber resilience outcomes that they needed to achieve. It did this by introducing an annual cyber security assurance scheme, known as GovAssure”. Pa…”

“Thank you. We could spend forever on this subject.”

“I want to close that off very quickly, because we could spend forever talking about AI in every session that we do. I see AI being used to cure diseases, and it feels like AI is approaching things in a way that humans cannot. Are we headed to a world where the threat actors are going to be just setting AI loose to try …”

“My question was what assurance you can give that the Government can keep up or stay ahead. What I heard there is that staying ahead of the threat is nigh-on impossible, as is reacting to it, because you do not know what the threat will evolve into. Let us park that for a minute and talk about keeping up with the threat…”

“I have one final point on that. We are talking about the ease of compliance, the ease of doing business and the way digital can make life easier for HMRC. There is a human element to digital. Not everybody reacts to digital in the same way. There is a psychological approach to it. Some people are very happy in a digita…”

“It will certainly help trust, if you get that right. That will impact the trust issues that we were talking about earlier.”

“Perhaps I will leave you with a comment. I almost agree with that. It is also your responsibility at HMRC to help customers to have a good experience. It is heartening to hear that a lot of your businesses are finding the journey acceptable, but we have to make sure we have heard the voices of the marginalised ones. It…”

“I have one final question, just expanding on that. You are absolutely right that Making Tax Digital was about bringing things into the modern world. It is a journey that started 10 years ago, but it is getting a turbo boost now with digital and AI. We have already covered that. Digital is going to be more all-encompass…”

“I am very supportive of what you are saying about customers who are non-compliant, but some customers who are complying are then seeing an additional burden. Are you getting the balance right, in not overly penalising compliant customers by approaching this in terms of the acceptable burden on those who are not complia…”

“I will give you another quote from the PAC Report from 2023. This is continuing from the quote I gave you earlier on. “However, HMRC has lost sight of the need to put customers at the heart of its changes to the tax system. The programme was originally expected to reduce the overall burden on customers but will now imp…”

“I am going to give you a quote from the PAC Report “Progress with making tax digital” from 2023: “HMRC announced in 2015–16 that its flagship digital transformation programme Making Tax Digital, would make it easier for taxpayers to get their tax right, helping to reduce the £9 billion of tax revenue lost each year fro…”

“It is bringing things together, so thank you for that.”

“Thank you, Chair. It is important that this Committee gets inside of that.”

“In terms of getting the efficiencies in the system and embracing new technologies, is it the case that the differences in terms of being held to account by the two Parliaments are not causing any issues? Is it the case that you are getting the same efficiencies and that there is no differential between them?”

“So just to clarify that, it is broadly the same. You are not seeing anything that causes you concern.”

“Good morning, Sir Jim. Happy retirement to you, when it comes. I am the MP for Stirling and Strathallan, so I am a Scottish MP. I am conscious that, when we talk about the tax system, we have our own tax rates in Scotland. I know that this is subject to different reports from the NAO, but it is helpful to talk about it…”

“Following on from that, paragraph 1.3 of the NAO Report says: “Government lacks basic data on how much is being spent.” How much is that data deficiency down to a lack of resources? I am going to address these questions to Andrew and Clare. How much is that data deficiency caused by the imbalance in resources to which …”

“The language that we use is incredibly important. We talk about this as having a thread of digital, as you said there, through the programme. We talk about digital natives and digital migrants. Most of us here are of the age where we grew up in the analogue world and have moved to the digital world. We expressed that m…”