Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many payments were fraudulently charged to his Department’s budget using electronic purchasing cards in the financial years (a) 2019-20, (b) 2020-21 and (c) 2021-22; and what the total value was of fraudulent payments (i) made and (ii) recovered in each of those years.

The following table sets out the value and volume of fraudulent transactions identified on the department’s procurement cards in each of the years shown. In every case the monies were recovered.