The new chair of the treasury select committee has been blocking people on Twitter who mention the controversial loan charge policy that he drove through as a government minister — regardless, they say, of whether or not they tweeted at him.
Among those blocked by Mel Stride on Twitter is the brother of a man who killed himself after being hit with the loan charge.
Stride, former financial secretary to the Treasury, has also blocked Greg Wright, the deputy business editor of the Yorkshire Post, who has been investigating the policy.
And he has blocked multiple campaigners, including Iain Campbell, the secretary general of the Independent Health Professionals Association, which represents locum doctors and NHS agency workers.
The loan charge, which has been linked to seven suicides as well as bankruptcies and marriage breakdowns, has left more than 50,000 people facing huge tax demands on income dating back 20 years.
The government says the contractors affected — including IT workers, engineers, nurses, and social workers — used "disguised remuneration schemes" to avoid taxes; many workers were assured by accountants at the time that this was legal, and some were even told they had to use the schemes to keep their jobs.
More than 200 MPs are calling for the loan charge to be suspended. An independent review was ordered by prime minister Boris Johnson and is due to report next month.
Stride blocked one man whose brother — an engineer in his mid-forties who had two children — killed himself in September. He is anonymous on Twitter but spoke to BuzzFeed News about his brother earlier this month.
Wright, who has long written for the Yorkshire Post about the impact of the loan charge on families, has asked Stride to unblock him. He added: "I follow – and am followed – by many people I disagree with. And if you choose to be a politician, you should be open to polite, balanced scrutiny on a public platform."
Campbell, who has warned that nurses and doctors had no choice but to sign up for loan schemes, said it was "outrageous" that Stride had blocked him.
Campaigners against the loan charge are now using the hashtag #BlockedByStride to highlight the number of people he has blocked.
Steve Packham, a spokesperson for the Loan Charge Action Group, a grassroots group set up by affected freelancers, told BuzzFeed News: "Mel Stride’s claim that he will do the role of treasury select committee 'without fear or favour' is laughable when he blocks journalists who dare to write about the loan charge.
"Even more troubling is that Mel Stride blocked the brother of a man who committed suicide facing the loan charge despite never having had any contact with him.
"He clearly is trying to silence and hide all criticism of his loan charge policy, which is hardly surprising considering the way he serially misled Parliament over it, but for him to now be expected to scrutinise the treasury and his own decisions is a farce."
Stride became chair of the treasury committee last week after serving as financial secretary and Commons leader under former prime minister Theresa May.
His office failed to respond to requests for comment from BuzzFeed News in time for publication.