The families of men who killed themselves after being hit with huge tax demands under the so-called loan charge have condemned the election of former Treasury minister Mel Stride as the new chair of the Treasury select committee.
Campaigners said it was a "farce" that the former financial secretary, who spearheaded the controversial policy and took it through Parliament, was now in charge of holding the Treasury to account.
Stride has been criticised in recent months for repeatedly refusing to appear before the House of Lords economic affairs committee on the policy, which aims to claw back money from people who were once paid through loans not wages.
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.
An independent review into the policy was ordered by prime minister Boris Johnson and is due to report next month.
Stride was elected chair of the Treasury committee on Wednesday in a ballot of MPs, beating three other candidates.
William*, the brother of a man in his mid-forties who killed himself in September after receiving tax demands from HM Revenue and Customs, told BuzzFeed News he was "gobsmacked". We have changed his name at the family's request.
"There is something wrong with the system when the architect of something as controversial as the loan charge gets to scrutinise his own policy decisions," he said.
"Mel Stride's appointment as chair will inevitably call into question the impartiality of the Treasury committee. If the public want to know what a conflict of interest looks like, then look no further."
Gayle's father — an engineer in his late sixties — died by suicide in November 2018. He left a long letter outlining his "shame" over the loan charge. Gayle did not want us to publish her family name.
She told BuzzFeed News that Stride's election was "unbelievable and insulting".
"How can this be allowed?" she said. "Having heard Mel Stride's callous responses to anyone who mentioned the confirmed loan charge suicides, I cannot see how he can be trusted to be impartial when scrutinising HMRC about the loan charge."
The government say the contractors affected — including IT workers, engineers, nurses, and social workers — used "disguised remuneration schemes" to avoid tax, but many workers were assured by accountants at the time that it was legal and some were told they had to use the schemes to keep their job.
Labour MP Wes Streeting, a Treasury committee member who has raised serious concerns about the loan charge, warned there must be "no conflict of interest".
Congratulations to Mel Stride. I look forward to working with him as a member of the Committee, but we will have to take appropriate steps to ensure that there is no conflict of interest when he comes to scrutinising decisions he was party to at HMT, particularly the #LoanCharge. https://t.co/4nRGKgeRXN
Steve Packham, a spokesperson for the Loan Charge Action Group, said: "It beggars belief that MPs have decided to elect a recent Treasury minister to chair the Treasury select committee.
"This undermines the whole select committee system as Mel Stride should not be scrutinising his own decisions and policies, which is a farce."
Packham said Stride had "continually misled MPs and peers over the loan charge", which made the decision to elect him "an absolute disgrace and a slap in the face for the families of those affected".
Greg Mulholland, a former Liberal Democrat MP who is working with loan charge campaigners, said it was "very wrong" for a recent Treasury minister to be elected Treasury committee chair.
I served 10 yrs on #SelectCommittees, key Parliamentary scrutiny of Govt, vital for democracy. V wrong for a recent Treasury Minister to be @CommonsTreasury Chair; Appalling for it to be Mel Stride who misled Parliament over the #LoanCharge & defied @LordsEconCom #AnyoneButStride
Conservative peer Lord Forsyth said in April that Stride had four times declined to give evidence to the Finance Bill sub-committee and the Lords economic affairs committee about the loan charge.
He told the House of Lords: "We invited the financial secretary to the Treasury, Mel Stride, to give evidence. At first, he said he was busy with the Budget, so we delayed our inquiry to accommodate him.
"He declined to attend on two occasions and he has since declined two further invitations to attend the economic affairs committee itself. The gravity of the evidence we received in this inquiry required a ministerial response."
Tory peer Baroness Noakes added: "It is little short of disgraceful for ministers to obstruct this house from holding the executive to account. It is also extremely discourteous."
A spokesperson for Stride declined to comment on the response from loan charge campaigners to his election as chair.
In a statement, Stride said of his new role: "I am thrilled to be elected by my fellow MPs as the chair of the Treasury committee, one of the most powerful backbench roles in parliament.
"The immediate focus of the committee will undoubtedly be on Brexit, the Budget, including our first evidence session with the current chancellor, and scrutinising the appointment of the new governor of the Bank of England. The committee will meet shortly to discuss our future programme of work."
UPDATE
Mel Stride later said: “As I said when running for this role, I want to reassure all MPs and members of the public that the Treasury committee will hold the government fully to account without fear or favour."
In a separate statement to the loan charge all-party group, Stride said: "Disguised remuneration and the loan charge are currently the subject of an independent review which is expected to report back in the middle of November.
"I do not think that anyone should prejudge its likely conclusions but when the report is published I think that it is highly likely that the committee will wish to look further into the recommendations and issues that it may raise.
"I would work very positively with the committee to that end. I would approach all consideration of the government’s policies in relation to disguised remuneration in an entirely fair and open-minded spirit much in the way that the last chair of the committee (and former Treasury minister) Nicky Morgan did so well."