Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many cases of fraudulent phone calls purporting to come from HMRC have been reported in each of the last three years; how many of those calls led to (a) arrests and (b) convictions; and if he will make a statement.

In the last three years, HMRC have received the following volume of reports of fraudulent telephone calls purporting to come from HMRC:

April 2017 to March 2018: 7,788

April 2018 to March 2019: 104,774

April 2019 to March 2020: 203,362

HMRC operate a dedicated Customer Protection team to prevent, detect and respond to frauds abusing the HMRC brand.

While HMRC do not hold data on the number of arrests and convictions for those conducting HMRC related telephone frauds, recent activity such as arrests in London, Dorset and Leicester in April 2020 of an individual accused of sending fraudulent HMRC emails and texts, the May 2020 arrest and guilty plea of a 20 year old in Camden (awaiting sentencing) who admitted sending HMRC branded scams, and the sentencing of a Bulgarian national for 9 years following extradition to the UK for a £41.6m fraud abusing the HMRC brand demonstrate HMRC and UK law enforcement’s determined pursuit of those defrauding the public.