Serious Crime Bill [HL]

I support my noble friend on this issue. I read with concern the evidence sent to a number of us by the Chartered Institute of Taxation, which is expert on this subject—much more expert than I am, as is my noble friend. The institute accepts fully that tax fraud needs to be investigated and that surveillance techniques may be required, but it points to the difficulty that sometimes may arise for individuals in distinguishing between the protection of Revenue and criminal activity and strongly urges that there should be a form of external monitoring of HMRC to ensure that there is no abuse of what is potentially a very intrusive power. Among the most remarkable bits of evidence obtained in January by the Treasury sub-committee in another place was the fact that at that time in the Inland Revenue there were 20,000 people with power of arrest. It was welcome to hear that that number was to be reduced to about 2,000. None the less,as the institute points out, the situation had been allowed to grow so that there were 10 times the number of people with power of arrest than are apparently needed, which supports the case for effective monitoring of these organisations so that such a situation is not allowed to develop in future. The institute points out, too, that there seems to be nothing in the Bill or Explanatory Notes that positively restricts HMRC’s use of surveillance techniques to criminal investigations. These are very extensive powers. This is a hugely powerful and, by its nature, intrusive organisation, which intrudes into all our affairs, though usually for perfectly proper reasons. But surely there must be very strong monitoring of such powers. For that reason, I strongly support my noble friend’s amendment.