The main topic was meant to be tax collection from wealthy taxpayers, but the chair of PAC, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown opened the hearing with John-Paul Marks, the new CEO of HMRC, saying that he had to address the serious incident of the phishing attack on 100,000 taxpayers.

Clifton-Brown acknowledged a letter from Marks written on 10 June to PAC but published publicly on 12 June addressing the phishing attack and the way HMRC dealt with it.