Last month, David Gauke answered a written parliamentary question from Conservative MP Andrew Stephenson and gave what appears to be an incorrect answer. He said information was ‘not published’ but the TIIN for the legislation says that the information is gathered and the EC ‘will report’ on it.
Let me explain.
There were two linked questions, numbers 37088 and 37089 asked on 18 May and answered on 27 May. Mr Stephenson asked how much has been collected by other EU countries on behalf of the UK, and how much has HMRC collected from UK citizens on behalf of other countries, under the Mutual Assistance Recovery Directive (MARD) each year.
Mr Gauke’s answer was: ‘This information is not published by the UK government or by the EU Commission’.
So far, so good. I am doing a little academic work around government transparency and my obvious thought was, well, why isn’t it published? Is it a secret? And, being a Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN) specialist, I thought I’d have a look at the TIIN for the transposition of the MARD directive and see what that said.
The MARD European Council Directive is 2010/24/EU, then FA 2011 Sch 25 makes provision for giving effect to that directive in the UK via a statutory instrument, and SI 2011/2931 is that SI.
If we look at the explanatory memorandum to the SI, though, we can see that:
‘10.3 A Tax Information and Impact Note covering this instrument was published on 23 March 2011 alongside the Finance Bill 2011 and is available on the HMRC website [at www.bit.ly/25Jk4Yt]. It remains an accurate summary of the impacts that apply to this instrument.’
Here’s what the TIIN has to say about monitoring and evaluation:
‘The Directive requires certain statistical information on debts received and sent out, on sums recovered and information exchanged. This information must be recorded annually and passed to the European Commission, which itself will report every five years to the European Parliament on mutual assistance matters. Systems are already in place to record this information.’
Because that contradicts what the minister said in his answer: he said the EU Commission did not publish the information, where the TIIN says that it reports on it to the European Parliament, which sounds like publication to me. If so, it would be a pretty serious matter: ministers inform and explain, apologise, take remedial action, or resign in support of the convention of ministerial responsibility’ according to what I know about individual ministerial responsibility. In other words, misleading parliament, even inadvertently and accidentally, would be a serious issue.
Assuming Mr Gauke wasn’t wrong, where does that leave us?
Well, perhaps although the information ‘must’ be recorded, maybe it hasn’t actually been?
I had a look for the EU report to the European Parliament and this is what I found: it seems the MARD Directive was updated in 2011. Where the original 2010 Directive had an article 27 requiring the Commission to report ‘every five years’, according to article 27 of the Council Directive 2011/16/EU of February 2011:
‘Every five years after 1 January 2013, the Commission shall submit a report on the application of this Directive to the European Parliament and to the Council.’
Maybe the answer is that the Commission won’t publish its figures until 1 January 2018? But, while I understand the ‘game’ of answering PQs is to give as little information possible as is consistent with the truth, maybe – as it costs a few hundred quid per answer – the executive might like to try a different tack and stop playing games and answer the actual question. Would it have been so hard to say: ‘The information is not published by the UK government. The EU Commission is expected to report to the EU Parliament in 2018’?
I alerted David Gauke, Andrew Stephenson and the Treasury press office to the possibility the answer was inaccurate and asked for a response. At the time of writing I haven’t had a reply.
And the substantive question remains: if the government is already collecting these stats as they relate to the UK, then why don’t they publish them?
Home >Articles > Should the Mutual Assistance Recovery Directive information be published?
Should the Mutual Assistance Recovery Directive information be published?
Last month, David Gauke answered a written parliamentary question from Conservative MP Andrew Stephenson and gave what appears to be an incorrect answer. He said information was ‘not published’ but the TIIN for the legislation says that the information is gathered and the EC ‘will report’ on it.
Let me explain.
There were two linked questions, numbers 37088 and 37089 asked on 18 May and answered on 27 May. Mr Stephenson asked how much has been collected by other EU countries on behalf of the UK, and how much has HMRC collected from UK citizens on behalf of other countries, under the Mutual Assistance Recovery Directive (MARD) each year.
Mr Gauke’s answer was: ‘This information is not published by the UK government or by the EU Commission’.
So far, so good. I am doing a little academic work around government transparency and my obvious thought was, well, why isn’t it published? Is it a secret? And, being a Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN) specialist, I thought I’d have a look at the TIIN for the transposition of the MARD directive and see what that said.
The MARD European Council Directive is 2010/24/EU, then FA 2011 Sch 25 makes provision for giving effect to that directive in the UK via a statutory instrument, and SI 2011/2931 is that SI.
If we look at the explanatory memorandum to the SI, though, we can see that:
‘10.3 A Tax Information and Impact Note covering this instrument was published on 23 March 2011 alongside the Finance Bill 2011 and is available on the HMRC website [at www.bit.ly/25Jk4Yt]. It remains an accurate summary of the impacts that apply to this instrument.’
Here’s what the TIIN has to say about monitoring and evaluation:
‘The Directive requires certain statistical information on debts received and sent out, on sums recovered and information exchanged. This information must be recorded annually and passed to the European Commission, which itself will report every five years to the European Parliament on mutual assistance matters. Systems are already in place to record this information.’
Because that contradicts what the minister said in his answer: he said the EU Commission did not publish the information, where the TIIN says that it reports on it to the European Parliament, which sounds like publication to me. If so, it would be a pretty serious matter: ministers inform and explain, apologise, take remedial action, or resign in support of the convention of ministerial responsibility’ according to what I know about individual ministerial responsibility. In other words, misleading parliament, even inadvertently and accidentally, would be a serious issue.
Assuming Mr Gauke wasn’t wrong, where does that leave us?
Well, perhaps although the information ‘must’ be recorded, maybe it hasn’t actually been?
I had a look for the EU report to the European Parliament and this is what I found: it seems the MARD Directive was updated in 2011. Where the original 2010 Directive had an article 27 requiring the Commission to report ‘every five years’, according to article 27 of the Council Directive 2011/16/EU of February 2011:
‘Every five years after 1 January 2013, the Commission shall submit a report on the application of this Directive to the European Parliament and to the Council.’
Maybe the answer is that the Commission won’t publish its figures until 1 January 2018? But, while I understand the ‘game’ of answering PQs is to give as little information possible as is consistent with the truth, maybe – as it costs a few hundred quid per answer – the executive might like to try a different tack and stop playing games and answer the actual question. Would it have been so hard to say: ‘The information is not published by the UK government. The EU Commission is expected to report to the EU Parliament in 2018’?
I alerted David Gauke, Andrew Stephenson and the Treasury press office to the possibility the answer was inaccurate and asked for a response. At the time of writing I haven’t had a reply.
And the substantive question remains: if the government is already collecting these stats as they relate to the UK, then why don’t they publish them?
