Concentrix: Tax Credit Claimants
Debate between Jim Cunningham and Fiona Mactaggart(7 years, 6 months ago)
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Fiona Mactaggart
I think that the best thing that we can do with this debate is ensure that lessons are learned from this failure, and that the whole Government act on them. It is time to get answers from the Treasury about the extent to which it, rather than Concentrix, is responsible for the failure.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend has done a great service in securing this debate. I had a problem, to say the least, over Christmas with a family who had no income for about eight weeks. We spent most of the Christmas period trying to get that family some money. Does she not agree that these matters should not be farmed out to private companies? They are far too sensitive. The Government should have another look at this, and the responsibility should be taken in-house. It should also be noted that HMRC has taken on another 30 staff; that is one heck of a cost as well. Another company that should be investigated is Capita, which is doing exactly the same thing because it has been set targets.
Fiona Mactaggart
My hon. Friend is right that we need to work out what Government should do. I will deal with that point later, but it is clear that part of the problem with Concentrix is that if people were notified, they often did not believe what they were told, because the Treasury insisted that Concentrix use its own branding on the letters, so people got letters from some company asking for extensive data. I would have treated that as phishing and thought, “This is someone trying to scam me.”