Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many enquiries HMRC has made as part of its random enquiry programme to investigate fraud in the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme; and how much money has been through that programme.

HMRC are taking 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 criminal prosecution.

The Government has invested £100 million in the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce up to 2022-23. They are expected to undertake 30,000 interventions and recover between £800 million and £1 billion.

All claims are risk assessed and considered for further one-to-one intervention where necessary. Along with gaining operational data from completed compliance interventions, HMRC are also conducting a random enquiry programme into Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) claims to test the error and fraud rate in the general population. Cases are selected at random and there may be no obvious risk present.

Random enquiry programmes are a part of the methodology employed by HMRC to develop the estimates of error and fraud. Therefore, providing this data in isolation does not give an accurate representation of compliance efforts on the CJRS.

Data from the random enquiry programme along with details of CJRS compliance interventions will enable HMRC to publish new and updated error and fraud estimates in their Annual Reports and Accounts and accompanying technical note, which is expected in July 2022.