Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much has been recovered by HM Revenue and Customs from furlough fraud to date.

HMRC’s latest fully assured figures, covering up to the end of March 2025, have been published in the HMRC Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hmrc-annual-report-and-accounts-2024-to-2025

Across the three HMRC-administered COVID-19 support schemes Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), Self Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) and Eat Out to Help Out (EOHO), up to the end of March 2025, HMRC’s compliance effort on the COVID-19 schemes has prevented the payment of or recovered the overpayment of over £1.7 billion worth of grants, which is made up of £430 million prevented from being paid out and £1.3 billion recovered from overpayments.

Of the overall £1.3 billion recovered from overpayments, £920 million relates to CJRS.

HMRC identifies claims for compliance checks where the amount of the claim is out of step with other information. The risk that the claim is incorrect may be due to a range of reasons from an honest mistake through to fraud, therefore our data does not distinguish between error and fraud.

HMRC also introduced dedicated voluntary disclosure portals where claimants can voluntarily repay a COVID-19 support scheme grant, either because they have identified an overpayment of a grant or if they no longer require it. These repayment facilities have so far resulted in unprompted disclosures and voluntary repayments of over £1 billion for CJRS, £51 million for SEISS, and £2 million for EOHO.

• CJRS: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/pay-coronavirus-job-retention-scheme-grants-back
• SEISS: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tell-hmrc-and-pay-the-self-employment-income-support-scheme-grant-back
• EOHO: Eat Out to Help Out Scheme (email eohovoluntaryrepayments@hmrc.gov.uk)