Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government (1) how many inspection visits HMRC made to money service businesses registered with them in each of the calendar quarters from 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2019; and (2) how many of any such visits per quarter led to (a) de-registration, (b) disciplinary action or (c) closure of the business.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) takes appropriate and effective enforcement actions against Money Service Businesses (MSBs) who fail to comply with the money laundering regulations. However, we consider that releasing the specific number of investigations and visits made to businesses in different sectors could enable opportunists to identify where resource is being focused, allowing criminals to arrange their activities accordingly to escape challenge. HMRC are therefore not able to release sector specific numbers on how many inspection visits are conducted against MSBs. The National Risk Assessment 2017 assessed MSBs as high risk for money laundering and terrorism financing and HMRC takes a risk-based approach to prioritise resources.

Across all sectors, HMRC closed around 1,300 onsite cases in each of the financial years 2017/18 and 2018/19. Many of these cases involved multiple visits to businesses and onsite inspection visits are just one of the ways that HMRC monitors supervised businesses. We cannot provide information on the outcomes of inspection visits alone although in the 2019/2020 financial year, HMRC has seen the value of penalties across all sectors triple when compared with the value of penalties issued for the financial year 2017/18.