Oral Answers to Questions

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Laura Trott]

As the hon. Lady knows, the investigation is ongoing, so it would not be appropriate to take any further steps at this stage.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

15. What steps his Department is taking to reduce benefit fraud.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)]

Dealing with fraud is, of course, a key mission for the Department. We have recently announced two tranches of additional investment totalling £900 million to prevent more than £1 billion-worth of fraud by 2024-25.

[Vicky Ford]

At difficult economic times like this it is particularly important for us to protect taxpayers’ money, so I welcome the Government’s further investment to tackle fraud, but what efforts are they making to address organised crime in the benefits system?

[Mel Stride]

My right hon. Friend has raised an extremely important matter. Unfortunately, fraud does not happen just at the level of the individual, but involves organised crime as well. Since July 2019, the Department has secured the removal of 1,500 social media accounts, many of which were related to organised crime, and since May 2020 it has suspended 170,000 claims.