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Billions of pounds of tax are being left uncollected in the UK because almost 2,300 HM Revenue & Customs tax compliance staff have been transferred to work on Brexit and Covid-19 schemes.

Victoria Atkins, the Treasury minister, acknowledged in response to ministerial questions that 1,043 HMRC tax compliance staff had been assigned to work on Brexit cases in the 2021-22 tax year. She added that a further 1,250 staff, who would normally be working on recovering unpaid taxes, have been moved to working on Covid-19 loan schemes — which have been subject to fraud.