Asked by: Lord Patten (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the value for money provided by global multilateral organisations in receipt of funds from the Official Development Assistance budget.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
The value for money and performance of multilateral organisations receiving Official Development Assistance (ODA) is continually assessed in FCDO annual reviews and business cases, as well as by the independent Multilateral Organisation Performance Assessment Network (MOPAN), which the UK is a member of. Multilateral ODA offers value for money by providing economies of scale and leveraging private sector investment. The UK's funding to multilateral organisations was reviewed for alignment to UK objectives and organisational effectiveness through the Multilateral Development Review (MDR) in 2016. The Independent Commission for Aid Impact also independently scrutinises the impact of UK ODA to multilaterals, for example reviews of 'The UK support to the World Bank's International Development Association' and 'Tackling fraud in UK aid through multilateral organisations' were completed this year.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what recent assessment he has made of the performance of Serious Fraud Office on complex cases of fraud.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
The Law Officers regularly meet the Director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the senior leadership team to discuss the SFO’s progress in tackling the top-level of serious or complex fraud, bribery, and corruption. The SFO is continuing to deliver significant results in cases of complex fraud. The 2022/23 financial year will see the SFO prosecute seven cases in court, five of which involve complex fraud. Three of these trials have already concluded, resulting in four fraudsters being convicted and sentenced to a total of 48 years in prison and justice being delivered to thousands of victims. I have included further details below:
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Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he has made an assessment of the potential risk of (a) money laundering, (b) tax fraud and (c) other illicit financial activities operating in proposed Investment Zones.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
HM Treasury and the Department for Levelling up Housing and Communities take a risk-based approach to fraud and error in meeting their policy objectives as advised by the Public Sector Fraud Authority and the National Audit Office.
The Departments manage and assess fraud risk in line with current guidance in the Green Book, Managing Public Money, and the Government Functional Standard for Counter Fraud.
Asked by: Douglas Chapman (Scottish National Party - Dunfermline and West Fife)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the grading structure applied to the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce is; and how many employees were in each grade as of 1 September 2022.
Answered by Richard Fuller
At the Spring Budget 2021, the Government announced a £100 million investment to form the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce. This enabled HMRC to significantly extend work to tackle fraud and error in the COVID-19 support schemes that HMRC administered (Self Employment Income Support Scheme, Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Eat Out to Help Out). These payments were grants rather than loans. HMRC does not administer or undertake compliance of other COVID-19 financial support packages, such as Bounce Back Loans.
The taskforce was funded for 1,265 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) staff selected from those who have tax training and compliance experience. Once they joined, the taskforce staff were provided with additional training on the COVID-19 schemes.
As of 31 July 2022, there were 1,203 FTE in the taskforce made up of the below grades:
Grades | FTE |
SCS | 1.2 |
G6 | 8.04 |
G7 | 30.73 |
SO | 121.46 |
HO | 487.76 |
O | 511.01 |
AO | 42.64 |
CCG Total | 1202.84 |
Asked by: Douglas Chapman (Scottish National Party - Dunfermline and West Fife)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many suspected fraud cases have been investigated by the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce; how many of those cases (a) have since been dropped or (b) will not result in prosecution; and what the value is of loans unpaid which will not be recovered in relation to the cases which have been dropped.
Answered by Richard Fuller
At the Spring Budget 202,1 the Government announced a £100 million investment to form the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce. This enabled HMRC to significantly extend work to tackle fraud and error in the COVID-19 support schemes that HMRC administered (Self Employment Income Support Scheme, Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Eat Out to Help Out). These payments are grants rather than loans. HMRC does not administer or undertake compliance of other COVID-19 financial support packages, such as Bounce Back Loans.
The £100 million funding covers backfilling the staff used to resource the taskforce.
In 2021-22 the taskforce had £41million allocated to the staffing budget and is forecasting £59 million in staffing for 2022-23.
During 2021-22, the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce consisted of 1,147 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) compliance officers, reassigned from other teams across HMRC. As of 31 July 2022, there are 1,203 FTE in the taskforce.
HMRC designed the Self Employment Income Support Scheme, Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Eat Out to Help Out schemes to prevent fraud, both in the eligibility criteria and the claim process itself. HMRC also put in place a series of checks on claims before they were paid, blocking those that were highly indicative of criminal activity.
The Government and HMRC are taking tough action to tackle fraudulent behaviour. Anyone who keeps grant money despite knowing they were not entitled to it faces having to repay up to double the amount they received, plus interest, and potentially face criminal prosecution.
The Taxpayer Protection Taskforce undertakes one-to-one investigations where there is a suspected overpayment of an HMRC administered COVID-19 grant. These overpayments may be due to error or fraud, therefore the total number of investigations opened and concluded does not distinguish between error and fraud.
As of 31 July 2022, the total number of investigations opened since the start of the schemes is over 45,000, of which c.31,000 have been concluded. The taskforce opened over 32,000 one to one investigations in addition to the c.13,000 one to one investigations opened prior to the taskforce being formed. These investigations are carried out using HMRC’s civil powers and do not involve prosecution. By 31 March 2022, HMRC have recovered around £762 million of overclaimed grants. This is in addition to £425 million prevented from being paid out incorrectly and £970 million returned by claimants because they did not need the grant or they identified they had overclaimed without HMRC taking action.
In addition, HMRC carries out criminal investigations in the most serious cases of fraud. As of 31 July 2022, there has been 1 successful prosecution for fraud on the HMRC administered COVID-19 support schemes. HMRC also has 30 active criminal investigations that involve suspected COVID-19 scheme fraud and the final decision on whether to prosecute in these cases will be made by independent prosecution partners.
Asked by: Douglas Chapman (Scottish National Party - Dunfermline and West Fife)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the value of loans is that have been recovered by the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce through successful prosecutions in (a) 2021-22 and (b) 2022-23.
Answered by Richard Fuller
At the Spring Budget 202,1 the Government announced a £100 million investment to form the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce. This enabled HMRC to significantly extend work to tackle fraud and error in the COVID-19 support schemes that HMRC administered (Self Employment Income Support Scheme, Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Eat Out to Help Out). These payments are grants rather than loans. HMRC does not administer or undertake compliance of other COVID-19 financial support packages, such as Bounce Back Loans.
The £100 million funding covers backfilling the staff used to resource the taskforce.
In 2021-22 the taskforce had £41million allocated to the staffing budget and is forecasting £59 million in staffing for 2022-23.
During 2021-22, the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce consisted of 1,147 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) compliance officers, reassigned from other teams across HMRC. As of 31 July 2022, there are 1,203 FTE in the taskforce.
HMRC designed the Self Employment Income Support Scheme, Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Eat Out to Help Out schemes to prevent fraud, both in the eligibility criteria and the claim process itself. HMRC also put in place a series of checks on claims before they were paid, blocking those that were highly indicative of criminal activity.
The Government and HMRC are taking tough action to tackle fraudulent behaviour. Anyone who keeps grant money despite knowing they were not entitled to it faces having to repay up to double the amount they received, plus interest, and potentially face criminal prosecution.
The Taxpayer Protection Taskforce undertakes one-to-one investigations where there is a suspected overpayment of an HMRC administered COVID-19 grant. These overpayments may be due to error or fraud, therefore the total number of investigations opened and concluded does not distinguish between error and fraud.
As of 31 July 2022, the total number of investigations opened since the start of the schemes is over 45,000, of which c.31,000 have been concluded. The taskforce opened over 32,000 one to one investigations in addition to the c.13,000 one to one investigations opened prior to the taskforce being formed. These investigations are carried out using HMRC’s civil powers and do not involve prosecution. By 31 March 2022, HMRC have recovered around £762 million of overclaimed grants. This is in addition to £425 million prevented from being paid out incorrectly and £970 million returned by claimants because they did not need the grant or they identified they had overclaimed without HMRC taking action.
In addition, HMRC carries out criminal investigations in the most serious cases of fraud. As of 31 July 2022, there has been 1 successful prosecution for fraud on the HMRC administered COVID-19 support schemes. HMRC also has 30 active criminal investigations that involve suspected COVID-19 scheme fraud and the final decision on whether to prosecute in these cases will be made by independent prosecution partners.
Asked by: Douglas Chapman (Scottish National Party - Dunfermline and West Fife)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the overall budget for the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce was in financial year 2021-22 for (a) staffing, (b) operations and (c) legal and court proceedings; and what the budget projections are for financial year 2022-23 for each of those categories.
Answered by Richard Fuller
At the Spring Budget 202,1 the Government announced a £100 million investment to form the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce. This enabled HMRC to significantly extend work to tackle fraud and error in the COVID-19 support schemes that HMRC administered (Self Employment Income Support Scheme, Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Eat Out to Help Out). These payments are grants rather than loans. HMRC does not administer or undertake compliance of other COVID-19 financial support packages, such as Bounce Back Loans.
The £100 million funding covers backfilling the staff used to resource the taskforce.
In 2021-22 the taskforce had £41million allocated to the staffing budget and is forecasting £59 million in staffing for 2022-23.
During 2021-22, the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce consisted of 1,147 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) compliance officers, reassigned from other teams across HMRC. As of 31 July 2022, there are 1,203 FTE in the taskforce.
HMRC designed the Self Employment Income Support Scheme, Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Eat Out to Help Out schemes to prevent fraud, both in the eligibility criteria and the claim process itself. HMRC also put in place a series of checks on claims before they were paid, blocking those that were highly indicative of criminal activity.
The Government and HMRC are taking tough action to tackle fraudulent behaviour. Anyone who keeps grant money despite knowing they were not entitled to it faces having to repay up to double the amount they received, plus interest, and potentially face criminal prosecution.
The Taxpayer Protection Taskforce undertakes one-to-one investigations where there is a suspected overpayment of an HMRC administered COVID-19 grant. These overpayments may be due to error or fraud, therefore the total number of investigations opened and concluded does not distinguish between error and fraud.
As of 31 July 2022, the total number of investigations opened since the start of the schemes is over 45,000, of which c.31,000 have been concluded. The taskforce opened over 32,000 one to one investigations in addition to the c.13,000 one to one investigations opened prior to the taskforce being formed. These investigations are carried out using HMRC’s civil powers and do not involve prosecution. By 31 March 2022, HMRC have recovered around £762 million of overclaimed grants. This is in addition to £425 million prevented from being paid out incorrectly and £970 million returned by claimants because they did not need the grant or they identified they had overclaimed without HMRC taking action.
In addition, HMRC carries out criminal investigations in the most serious cases of fraud. As of 31 July 2022, there has been 1 successful prosecution for fraud on the HMRC administered COVID-19 support schemes. HMRC also has 30 active criminal investigations that involve suspected COVID-19 scheme fraud and the final decision on whether to prosecute in these cases will be made by independent prosecution partners.
Asked by: Douglas Chapman (Scottish National Party - Dunfermline and West Fife)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many prosecutions have resulted from the investigations of the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce as of 1 September 2022; and how many investigations have been concluded and are waiting to be progressed by the courts.
Answered by Richard Fuller
At the Spring Budget 202,1 the Government announced a £100 million investment to form the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce. This enabled HMRC to significantly extend work to tackle fraud and error in the COVID-19 support schemes that HMRC administered (Self Employment Income Support Scheme, Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Eat Out to Help Out). These payments are grants rather than loans. HMRC does not administer or undertake compliance of other COVID-19 financial support packages, such as Bounce Back Loans.
The £100 million funding covers backfilling the staff used to resource the taskforce.
In 2021-22 the taskforce had £41million allocated to the staffing budget and is forecasting £59 million in staffing for 2022-23.
During 2021-22, the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce consisted of 1,147 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) compliance officers, reassigned from other teams across HMRC. As of 31 July 2022, there are 1,203 FTE in the taskforce.
HMRC designed the Self Employment Income Support Scheme, Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Eat Out to Help Out schemes to prevent fraud, both in the eligibility criteria and the claim process itself. HMRC also put in place a series of checks on claims before they were paid, blocking those that were highly indicative of criminal activity.
The Government and HMRC are taking tough action to tackle fraudulent behaviour. Anyone who keeps grant money despite knowing they were not entitled to it faces having to repay up to double the amount they received, plus interest, and potentially face criminal prosecution.
The Taxpayer Protection Taskforce undertakes one-to-one investigations where there is a suspected overpayment of an HMRC administered COVID-19 grant. These overpayments may be due to error or fraud, therefore the total number of investigations opened and concluded does not distinguish between error and fraud.
As of 31 July 2022, the total number of investigations opened since the start of the schemes is over 45,000, of which c.31,000 have been concluded. The taskforce opened over 32,000 one to one investigations in addition to the c.13,000 one to one investigations opened prior to the taskforce being formed. These investigations are carried out using HMRC’s civil powers and do not involve prosecution. By 31 March 2022, HMRC have recovered around £762 million of overclaimed grants. This is in addition to £425 million prevented from being paid out incorrectly and £970 million returned by claimants because they did not need the grant or they identified they had overclaimed without HMRC taking action.
In addition, HMRC carries out criminal investigations in the most serious cases of fraud. As of 31 July 2022, there has been 1 successful prosecution for fraud on the HMRC administered COVID-19 support schemes. HMRC also has 30 active criminal investigations that involve suspected COVID-19 scheme fraud and the final decision on whether to prosecute in these cases will be made by independent prosecution partners.
Asked by: Douglas Chapman (Scottish National Party - Dunfermline and West Fife)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many full time equivalent officials were deployed to the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce in the financial year 2021-22; and what the staff complement is for that taskforce as at 1 September 2022.
Answered by Richard Fuller
At the Spring Budget 202,1 the Government announced a £100 million investment to form the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce. This enabled HMRC to significantly extend work to tackle fraud and error in the COVID-19 support schemes that HMRC administered (Self Employment Income Support Scheme, Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Eat Out to Help Out). These payments are grants rather than loans. HMRC does not administer or undertake compliance of other COVID-19 financial support packages, such as Bounce Back Loans.
The £100 million funding covers backfilling the staff used to resource the taskforce.
In 2021-22 the taskforce had £41million allocated to the staffing budget and is forecasting £59 million in staffing for 2022-23.
During 2021-22, the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce consisted of 1,147 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) compliance officers, reassigned from other teams across HMRC. As of 31 July 2022, there are 1,203 FTE in the taskforce.
HMRC designed the Self Employment Income Support Scheme, Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Eat Out to Help Out schemes to prevent fraud, both in the eligibility criteria and the claim process itself. HMRC also put in place a series of checks on claims before they were paid, blocking those that were highly indicative of criminal activity.
The Government and HMRC are taking tough action to tackle fraudulent behaviour. Anyone who keeps grant money despite knowing they were not entitled to it faces having to repay up to double the amount they received, plus interest, and potentially face criminal prosecution.
The Taxpayer Protection Taskforce undertakes one-to-one investigations where there is a suspected overpayment of an HMRC administered COVID-19 grant. These overpayments may be due to error or fraud, therefore the total number of investigations opened and concluded does not distinguish between error and fraud.
As of 31 July 2022, the total number of investigations opened since the start of the schemes is over 45,000, of which c.31,000 have been concluded. The taskforce opened over 32,000 one to one investigations in addition to the c.13,000 one to one investigations opened prior to the taskforce being formed. These investigations are carried out using HMRC’s civil powers and do not involve prosecution. By 31 March 2022, HMRC have recovered around £762 million of overclaimed grants. This is in addition to £425 million prevented from being paid out incorrectly and £970 million returned by claimants because they did not need the grant or they identified they had overclaimed without HMRC taking action.
In addition, HMRC carries out criminal investigations in the most serious cases of fraud. As of 31 July 2022, there has been 1 successful prosecution for fraud on the HMRC administered COVID-19 support schemes. HMRC also has 30 active criminal investigations that involve suspected COVID-19 scheme fraud and the final decision on whether to prosecute in these cases will be made by independent prosecution partners.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to stop cyber criminals.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
Tackling cyber crime is at the heart of the Government’s new National Cyber Strategy which is supported by £2.6bn of new investment over the three year Spending Review period. The National Cyber Strategy (2022-2025) has set the direction and ambition for investment and efforts in UK Cyber. Delivery of the Strategy is being supported by the National Cyber Fund. This programme has allocated investment to lead government departments to support delivery of the objectives set out in the strategy.
We are continuing to invest in law enforcement capabilities at the national, regional and local levels to ensure they have the capacity to deal with the increasing volume and sophistication of cyber crime, which includes ensuring officers are being trained and upskilled.
The Cyber Aware campaign is a major national advertising campaign that aims to help businesses (as well as individuals) to protect themselves online. The campaign empowers and enables the public and micro businesses to understand the best ways to stay secure online and take the necessary protective actions; and supports wider efforts to combat the threat at source via the Suspicious Email Reporting Service (SERs), and through partnership interventions. This year’s campaign was launched on 18 March and is focusing on empowering citizens, microbusinesses and sole traders to keep their email accounts secure. Cyber Aware - NCSC.GOV.UK
The Governments’ Cyber Essentials Scheme provides the basic controls all businesses should implement to protect themselves. About Cyber Essentials - NCSC.GOV.UK
Cyber Prevent is an important part of our response to tackling cyber crime. This is an early intervention programme aimed at deterring individuals from getting involved in cyber crime in the first place, moving deeper into cyber crime or reoffending and diverting them towards positive directions. Since 2019, all local forces now have a Cyber Prevent capability.
Further good advice and helpful products from Government include the 10 Steps to Cyber Security and the Cyber Information Sharing Partnership (CISP). 10 Steps to Cyber Security - NCSC.GOV.UK
We have also rolled out Regional Cyber Resilience Centres in each of the nine policing regions, and London. These are a collaboration between police, public, private sector and academic partners to provide subsidised or free products and cyber security consultancy services to help Small and Medium Sized Enterprise and micro businesses protect themselves better in a digital age.
We have developed and we continue to innovate on a series of Active Cyber Defence measures. Active Cyber Defence is the principle of implementing security measures to strengthen the security of a network or system to make it more robust against attack. The National Cyber Security Centre’s Active Cyber Defence programme provides tools that are free at the point of use which help organisations to tackle, in a relatively automated way, a significant proportion of the cyber attacks that hit the UK.
There were 28,886 computer misuse offences referred to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) by Action Fraud in the year ending March 2022, an overall decrease of 5% from the year ending March 2021 (30,467). All computer misuse offence types saw a decrease, apart from ‘Hacking – social media and email’ which increased by 6% (from 13,576 to 14,357)
The number of computer misuse offences disseminated to forces rose by 9%, from 3,991 in the year ending March 2021 to 4,335 in the year ending March 2022.The total number of computer misuse offences assigned an outcome decreased by 5% from 7,900 in the year ending March 2021 to 7,556 in the year ending March 2022. Of those outcomes, the number resulting in a ‘Charged/Summonsed’ outcome increased from 74 to 97.