As Christmas and New Year approaches, I would like to provide an end of year update upon behalf of the Investment Fraud All Party Parliamentary Group Advisory Board. It has been an honour and a privilege to co-found this APPG and to be appointed Chair of our esteemed panel of advisors.

Investment Fraud is far from victimless. It is an appalling crime that shatters lives and breaks families apart. Charging rates are shockingly low, there is very little specialist support or financial redress available to victims and many victims are struggling to deal with the financial and psychological consequences of HMRC action against them for tax liabilities emanating from crime.

Fraud is now the UK’s most prevalent crime and we need a system fully equipped to deal with it. Accordingly, we are calling on our Government and every part of the criminal justice system (including His Majesties Revenue and Customs) to come together with priority, conviction, empathy and determination to see justice done in these cases and to better support victims. Otherwise, we are simply letting fraud victims and their families as a society down.

2023 has been a pivotal year for our APPG and seen:

A New Secretariat

1.    Keller Postman Solicitors taking over our secretariat;

A New Panel of Advisors

2.    The formation of a new panel of expert advisors including Rick Muir, Director of the Police Foundation, Adam Richardson, Barrister of 1EB, Margaret Snowdon OBE of the Pensions Scams Industry Group, Andy Agathangelou, Co-founder of the Transparency Taskforce to our board. We also appointed campaigner Sue Flood as our victim representative. Having a strong, knowledgeable panel of expert advisors is vital to the success of our APPG;

Treasury Expertise

3.    The appointment of former Treasury Minister Sir Stephen Timms (Chair of the DWP Select Committee) and Lord John Mann (Former Treasury Select Committee Chair) to our panel. We also welcomed MP Toby Perkins to our APPG. We sought senior parliamentarians with direct experience of treasury matters to help formulate workable and pragmatic recommendations for reform to present to HMRC and The Treasury.

Our First APPG Inquiry

4.     We brought together experts, victims and parliamentarians to Parliament from across the political spectrum to inquire into the tax treatment of investment and pension fraud victims. The evidence provided has contributed to our first inquiry report. 

Recommendations

5.    We researched best practice overseas and held roundtable discussions at Parliament with lawyers, financial advisors, tax experts and investigators amongst others to formulate workable recommendations and a new framework to present to HMRC & The Treasury

Media Outreach & Engagement

6.    We launched new social media channels and hit the news channels. We filmed victim evidence sessions and participated in a fly on the wall documentary.

Letters & Briefings

7.    Our parliamentarians wrote many letters and also held numerous meetings with ministers to seek to highlight the plight of victims and call for reforms.

Submissions to Government Committees

8.     In recent months we have submitted evidence and recommendations to the Home Affairs Committee Inquiry into Fraud and The Public Accounts Committee in response to their call for evidence. Further details will be published in due course.

We are now seeking meetings with government ministers and HMRC to present our evidence and findings and to discuss our proposals for reform. We hope that these proposals will be welcomed and provide an alternative mechanism for dealing with tax liabilities arising from fraud. I fully appreciate this is an uphill battle. But our aim is not simply to criticise. We recognise that HMRC officers have a vital job to do in raising funds for our public services and do so in difficult conditions. Our aim is to help create a more efficient and effective as well as fairer system for both HMRC, the Treasury and for victims. We hope we’ve struck an appropriate balance and that our suggested reforms are a good starting point for government ministers and policy-makers to consider. 

Our calls for reform include :

-   Relief for historic victims;

-   An Independent Inquiry;

-   Legislative & Policy Change;

-   Reform at HMRC;

-   Greater support for Victims.

In 2024 we have an exciting programme of work.

Firstly, our campaign for fair tax treatment for investment and pension fraud victims will continue and we will be marching to Parliament and HMRC to formally present our inquiry findings and to call publicly for reform.

I am also delighted to share that we will be partnering with the Social Market Foundation (https://www.smf.co.uk ), Britain’s leading cross-party think-tank to conduct primary research and develop evidence based policies to present to government. Victims have reported to us that they are being denied justice and that our law enforcement agencies and regulators are failing them. Together with the SMF we will be considering access to justice and how our system compares to other jurisdictions with a particular emphasis on best practice in the US.

We will also be conducting focused inquiries and research into a number of highly targeted groups including sports professionals and music artists, pension savers and military veterans.

I would like to place on record our gratitude to all our cross-party parliamentarians for their continuous dedication to this cause and especially to Caroline Nokes MP and Alex Sobel MP. Caroline and Alex have put party politics aside to chair this APPG so diligently and have lent us the full support of their team, who have tirelessly worked behind the scenes organising correspondence, meetings and our events at Parliament. Thank you.

I would like to thank my fellow panel members who have provided such valuable pro bono expertise and support to our APPG including peer reviewing and helping to formulate our reports and recommendations. A special acknowledgement also to Sue Flood whose dedication and commitment to victims has been fearless and unwavering and to Sir Stephen Timms for his meticulous examination of our proposals and evidence.

I would finally like to thank sincerely the courageous victims who so bravely stepped forward to give evidence and also the numerous expert witnesses (tax advisors, lawyers, financial advisors and investigators amongst others) who participated in our round table discussions to debate our proposed reforms. I would also like to thank students at Oxford University’s Research Consultancy for their pro bono assistance in researching best practice overseas some time ago- which helped inform our recommendations.

I have a vested interest in this issue. I’ve lived through these systemic issues myself. My motivation however, in helping to co-found this APPG is to help safeguard future victims and their families and to support those families currently in crisis and struggling to deal with the aftermath of fraud. The scale of the change needed is significant. It will rely on long-term political will, strong leadership and appropriate scrutiny of our current practices and systems. We know only too well that lives depend on it.

Whilst we made good progress in 2023, it is not the end and we are exploring every avenue to tackle these issues and ensure that our system prevents and punishes this shattering crime, and that investment and pension fraud victims are treated fairly and appropriately and get the support and justice they deserve.

On behalf of everyone at the Investment Fraud APPG I want to end by wishing all our APPG supporters a happy, healthy and peaceful Christmas & New Year. Only together can we succeed and we have much to be proud of. Thank you for your support in 2023. 

Carly Barnes-Short

Click here to view the APPG on Investment Fraud’s First Inquiry Report.