Universal Credit

(asked on 9th July 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the number of fraudulent universal credit loan claims since the roll-out of those loans.


Answered by
Alok Sharma Portrait
Alok Sharma
COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
This question was answered on 17th July 2019

Advances are designed to ensure that the most vulnerable claimants receive the money they need to live on during their transition to Universal Credit (UC).

It is important to make clear that the vast majority of claims to UC Advances are legitimate.

As at the end of June 2019, potential fraudulent advance claims equate to less than 1 per cent of all Universal Credit claims.

The Department takes this issue very seriously and will investigate all claims where fraud may have been committed. Indeed, we have set up a dedicated team to investigate this specific type of fraud.

We are also committed to the use of penalties such as prosecutions and tough financial penalties to discourage this fraudulent behaviour.

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