Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Universal Credit fraud prosecutions were (a) withdrawn by his Department and (b) dismissed by a judge before trial in each of the last three financial years; and if he will provide a breakdown of these cases by (i) region and (ii) the primary reason recorded for the withdrawal of the prosecution.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) do not make decisions on whether to prosecute individuals and cannot make the decision to withdraw a prosecution. The DWP will complete the investigation and when appropriate hand the case files to the Crown Prosecution Service (Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service for Scotland), who will make the decision on whether to prosecute.