Dear Mr. Crabb – latest DWP Secretary
Congratulations on your appointment as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions – DWP. I wish you well, and would ask you to engage urgently with the Ark Class Action representing hundreds of victims of pension fraud as we urgently need your help and support as we have been spurned and betrayed by both Duncan-Smith and Altmann. The DWP has indeed been a dismal failure.
The Ark Class Action addresses a multi-billion pound problem, with thousands of people having lost their pensions and being targeted by HMRC with crippling tax demands. The tax collected will be a drop in the ocean compared to the long-term cost to the State of supporting and housing people who will be ruined and made homeless to pay the tax, and there is no mathematical or economic case for continuing with these demands. Please see the our letter to Lin Homer’s replacement Edward Troup (LINK TO BE PLACED ON PUBLISH) for a more in-depth explanation of why this situation is such a disgrace to the government.
Your predecessor has, unfortunately, disgraced himself with the Class Action as over a year ago he promised to champion our cause and arrange meetings with David Gauke and George Osborne. It turned out he never had any intention of doing so, then he stole one of the victims’ Ark files and subsequently lied about it. Ros Altmann has been little better, as she refused to meet two victims and me last December even though we had told her we were coming to her office. You are therefore going to have to address a substantial amount of damage limitation in terms of your department’s performance.
Pension scams are a huge international problem, with pension liberation being just one of the types of fraud perpetrated – not just in the UK but also all over Europe, the Middle East and beyond. There are regulated and unregulated firms, operating outright scams or grey-area cons. The vast numbers of British victims losing their pensions to the scammers and con men undermine confidence in the financial industry and the financial services profession. The disastrous “pensions freedoms” and the recent Justice Morgan case have made the situation significantly worse.
Regrettably, your former job as Welsh Secretary has left a huge problem unresolved. A Middle-Eastern firm of financial advisers was given a grant of £750k by the British government to create jobs in Wales, but instead of doing so, the money was taken offshore to the Gulf area and is now being used for illegal activities – including crimes against British citizens in Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. This firm, which is not being pursued for repayment of the grant, is using this money to pay substantial bribes of hundreds of thousands of pounds to widen the scale of their market penetration. I am happy to work with you to ensure the principals of this firm are brought to justice and the money repaid in full.
