Student Loans Company Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Clive Efford
Main Page: Clive Efford (Labour - Eltham and Chislehurst)Department Debates - View all Clive Efford's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(7 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Joseph Johnson
Of course we want all students in repayment to be treated fairly by the SLC and we take the issue of overpayments particularly seriously. As I said in response to the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden), we can expect to hear more on the theme of overpayments and the interaction between the SLC and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in a couple of days’ time at the Budget.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
The Minister seems complacent about the extent of fraud. He can report to us only the amount of fraud that is known about but, by their very nature, the people who carry out fraud are devious. Did the “Panorama” programme suggest to him an area of fraudulent activity of which he was not aware before? What action did he take in response to what was exposed by that programme?
Joseph Johnson
The hon. Gentleman is of course right that the nature of fraud is such that we only really have a sighting shot at understanding its extent in any system. We have to look at comparable levels of ineligible payments across different types of provider. As I said, we do not see more fraud in the so-called alternative providers than we see in the HEFCE-funded public part of the higher education system.