Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much HM Revenue and Customs expects to recover from outstanding furlough fraud investigations.

This question was answered on 10th December 2025
The Covid Counter Fraud Commissioner Tom Hayhoe’s final report to Parliament found many schemes were rolled out with huge fraud risks and no early safeguards – costing the taxpayer millions.

Weak accountability, bad quality data and poor contracting were identified as the primary causes of the £10.9 billion pound losses – which were enough to fund daily free school meals for the UK’s 2.7 million eligible children for eight years.

This government has already recouped almost £400m of Covid support cash.

The government has already actioned many of the Commissioner’s early proposals. These include:

• A voluntary repayment scheme, launched in September, giving claimants until 31 December to pay up.
• Tougher sanctions powers through the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill, which became law on 2 December.
• Specialist fraud recovery teams to track down suspected fraudsters and recover taxpayer cash, from 2026.