Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent estimate he has made of the proportion of legitimate HMRC contact with the public that the public has mistakenly perceived to be fraudulent; and what estimate he has made of the cost of that mistaken perception to the public purse.

The Chancellor is in regular contact with Cabinet colleagues, including the Home Secretary. In line with the practice of successive administrations, details of ministerial discussions are not normally disclosed.

HMRC have many hundreds of millions of contacts with the public every year. Creating clear air between genuine HMRC communications and those attempting to abuse the HMRC brand to commit fraud is a high priority for HMRC. HMRC’s success in preventing the UK public being duped by fraudulent operators impersonating legitimate contact is reflected in the move from HMRC as the third most phished brand globally five years ago, to not featuring in the top 100 most phished brands today.