Oral Answers to Questions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Pat McFadden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to the scale of the problem. The truth is that, according to the latest figures, the amount that has been recovered is relatively small compared with the scale of loss. The previous Government’s own former Minister for counter-fraud described the Conservative party’s record as “nothing less than woeful” and riddled with “schoolboy errors”, and the shadow Business Secretary, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), described the previous Prime Minister’s handling of this issue as dismissive. We cannot afford to be dismissive: we have a duty to take it seriously and use whatever means we can to bear down on fraud, so that money meant for public services and legitimate recipients of public funds is used for its intended purposes.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I want to highlight innocent errors where Government systems are failing to pick up overpayments and as a result people are chased. I am thinking particularly of unpaid carers earning just a few extra pounds, which means that the Department for Work and Pensions is clawing back thousands from them in carer’s allowance, because HMRC systems fail to alert the DWP when earnings have increased. What is the Cabinet Office doing to ensure that Government systems properly work to stop these things happening?

[Pat McFadden]

This issue has been highlighted more than once in the Chamber this week. We are of course hugely appreciative of the job that carers do, and that has to be balanced with the proper use of public funds so that those funds get to the intended recipients. Where there are overpayments, they do need to be recovered in the interests of the taxpayer, but I hope that is always done in a proper and compassionate manner.