Speeches by Olney.

“ I have been contacted by a business in my constituency about R&D tax reliefs. It told me that because HMRC changed its classification once it applied for R&D tax credits, it was then rejected. It has had enormous difficulty engaging with HMRC to discuss the matter. The case was opened in 2022; there was then a wh…”

“ So you are still working out the covid interruption impacts.”

“ To summarise, your approach will be to ensure that the new debt does not become aged, as opposed to having a new approach to collecting aged debt. Mr Holliday, I see that the amount of debt written off increased from £3.2 billion in ’22-23 to £5 billion in ’23-24, which is obviously a significant increase. Are yo…”

“ Thank you. It is clear from the report that the debt balance is becoming progressively more aged. Do you have any specific approaches to tackling some of the older debt?”

“ Can you give me a sense of how those staff are going to be deployed to help you manage that? Perhaps Mr Holliday could answer.”

“ Let us move on to the level of debt. Tax debt is now at £43 billion, which is less than a year ago, but it is still very much higher than it was before the pandemic. Do you have anything to say about why it continues to be so high? When might we start to see a significant reduction?”

“ Finally, will the additional compliance staff you are recruiting be deployed primarily in upstream compliance activities or will they perhaps be more focused on prosecutions?”

“ I note in the report that £14 billion of that £42 billion compliance yield is coming from upstream compliance, which is better managing people’s tax affairs before they get to a non-compliance phase. A lot of that accounting is based on estimates and it is a little bit uncertain. Can you talk us a little more thr…”

“ Is there not a danger that, in the lower-value cases, failing to prosecute some of the criminal behaviour reduces that deterrent effect, and perhaps leads to almost a culture of non-compliance, because people do not think that they will be pursued?”

“ Can I ask how you have achieved that increase in compliance yield? According to the report, there is an increasing focus on upstream compliance, but according to the numbers in your report, that has led to a decrease in prosecutions. There were 344 prosecutions in 2023-24, compared to 691 in 2019-20, before the p…”

“ Moving on to the related issue of the compliance yield, obviously you have exceeded your target for the past year in the report and accounts, with £42 billion compared with your target of £40.5 billion. Do you think that HMRC will be able to sustain the increase in compliance yield over the next few years? Can we…”

“ I am glad to hear you say that.”

“ On the tax gap, quickly, what level of reduction do you think HMRC would regard as a success?”

“T8. Last Friday, I met GPs at the Fairhill medical practice in north Kingston in my constituency. They have told me that the increase in national insurance contributions will add £50,000 a year to their costs. Can the Secretary of State tell me whether GPs can expect to see an across-the-board cut in the NICs payable b…”

“Will this be, dare I say, tinkering with the existing system or will this, in due course, be a whole new system?”

“Susan Acland-Hood, how are you building a shared understanding of where special educational needs fits across Government and individual organisations’ priorities? This is in relation to the system challenge that so many schools and parents are experiencing in terms of the gaps in provision between different organisatio…”

“Ms Chua, is this approach going to be effective in terms of chasing out some of the disincentives that currently exist within the system, particularly in schools, where they are not having to accept SEN pupils? The financial disincentive remains. Will this approach be effective in addressing some of those issues?”

“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again. I am pleased to hear that there will be a proper study of the impact of aviation noise on sleep disruption, and I very much look forward to that publication. He may have missed the early part of my speech, where I asked for a much more robust study of the economic ben…”

“A luddite?”

“My hon. Friend is right. She speaks passionately on behalf of her constituents in Twickenham, who I know are blighted by these issues just as much as my constituents in Richmond Park. She is right about the health impacts of long-term exposure to nocturnal aircraft noise, which is strongly linked to sleep disorders and…”