On the go: The minister for pensions and financial inclusion, Guy Opperman, has said he would like to see HM Revenue & Customs have a more active participation in combating pension scams.
In a written response to the Work and Pensions Committee’s inquiry on pension scams, economic secretary John Glen stated that HMRC has always co-operated with Project Bloom — one of the main initiatives to tackle pension fraud — but it is not an active member of the organisation due to its “duty of taxpayer confidentiality”.
Addressing the Work and Pensions Committee hearing on Wednesday, My Opperman said that while he fully respects and understands this “is a classic problem of data sharing”, he is going to have another look at this matter since he believed “HMRC could take a much more active role in Project Bloom while still respecting taxpayer confidentiality”.
“I would very much hope that HMRC can become much more actively involved in Project Bloom in the future, because they should be able to be part of the group […] in circumstances where we need as many hands on deck as possible,” he said.
Mr Opperman also argued that the pensions industry has a bigger role to play in combating pension scams.
He said that the Pension Scams Industry Group “has done a very good job”, and currently has 50 pension organisations participating in a data-sharing project.
“But the practical reality is that you need about 200 organisations for there to be a real coverage of that industry. In other words, there are 150 firms that are not providing that data.”
Mr Opperman revealed that he will be writing to these industry participants and asking them why they are not participating in the data-sharing initiative.
“That will galvanise a great deal of change in a really quick amount of time. I think that will make a big difference,” he said.
Action Fraud figures also published on Wednesday showed that fraudsters pretending to be legitimate companies stole £78m from unsuspecting victims through pension and investment scams in 2020.
Reports of clone companies increased 29 per cent in April 2020 compared with March as fraudsters looked to take advantage of uncertainty created by the Covid-19 pandemic.
While this issue is out of his remit, Mr Opperman said: “I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Google needs to take a very long hard look at themselves and to change their ways.”
Scammers operate by setting up clone companies using the name, address and firm reference number of real companies authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. They then send out sales materials linking to the websites of legitimate firms to trick potential investors into thinking they are dealing with the real company.
“We’ve reached the situation where the number one provider of information isn’t a newspaper or an encyclopaedia; it is Google, and in some instances Facebook,” he said.
“I have very strong views that what is going on and what Google and Facebook are allowing to happen is utterly unacceptable.”
