However, HMRC also told us that it was already reducing numbers of prosecutions before the pandemic, and that is not planning on restoring the number of prosecutions to pre-pandemic levels, even with the backlog. Before the pandemic, the number of prosecutions had reduced from around 900 in 2017–18 to around 700 in each of 2018–19 and 2019–20. HMRC told us this was because it considered that its criminal prosecution powers were best used to tackle the most serious and complex cases, rather than large volumes of smaller cases.16