Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

This Government are doing more to help unemployed young people back to work than was ever done by the previous one. I remind him that his Government left us with rising youth unemployment. They took all those who were unemployed for over 10 months and put them on a course. When those who were unemployed came off the course, they went back to zero, and therefore were never registered. We have a better record than they had.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

2. What steps he is taking to prevent fraudulent universal credit claims.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

We are investing £400 million in the next four years to reduce fraud and error as part of a joint operation with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the Cabinet Office. We are already making progress, and universal credit will enable even greater strides to be made. At the autumn statement, the inclusion of universal credit in the baseline—a critical moment—means we now anticipate savings from fraud, error and overpayments to be roughly £2.2 billion per year.

[Stephen Mosley]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s response. Any money defrauded from the taxpayer is money taken from those who are most in need. Does he agree that universal credit is one way in which the Government are cracking down on those who are abusing the system?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

That is absolutely true. We were left with a series of benefits that too often were riddled with fraud and error. Not all of this is about fraud. Many people are receiving overpayments or underpayments when they should be receiving the correct amount. Too often with tax credits, people are chased at the end of the year, without their realising that they had received the wrong money in the first place. Universal credit will be kinder in the sense that it will be adjusted each month. It will help us save huge sums—some studies state £2.2 billion per year.