Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to tackle benefit fraud.

We take all fraud very seriously. Our Fraud Plan, Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System, published on 19 May 2022, sets out our approach and explains how the additional investment is allowing us to recruit 1,400 more staff into our counter-fraud teams, establish a new 2,000-strong team dedicated to reviewing the circumstances of large volumes of the Universal Credit caseload over the next 5 years and develop enhanced data analytics as a means of preventing and detecting fraud and error.

More information on our Fraud Plan, can be found here:

Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

This work is supported by two tranches of additional investment totalling around £900m, which will help prevent a further £2.4bn of loss by 2024/25. This investment includes money allocated via the Autumn Statement, which will help prevent abuse of the system and drive forward our UC case checks.

Collectively, this builds on the existing work and measures DWP has in place to address overpayments, with savings from the correction and prevention of fraud and error totalling £2 billion last year.