Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of how much (a) was lost from the public purse due to fraud during the covid-19 pandemic, (b) of that fraud has been recovered and (c) is irrecoverable.

During the pandemic, the Government delivered an unprecedented package of economic support to preserve livelihoods and save businesses across the whole United Kingdom.

The Government is committed to transparency in its efforts to tackle fraud against the public sector. The UK is one of the few countries to publish data on fraud and error within the public sector in the Fraud Landscape Report. The Government will continue to be transparent and prioritise its efforts in detecting, preventing and recovering fraud associated with the pandemic.

The Fraud Landscape Report showed that in 2020/21, across government and outside of tax and welfare (so, excluding COVID-19 expenditure in HMRC and DWP), departments reported £88m of recovered fraud and error related to COVID-19.

Since 2021, we have invested in taking action on fraud, to bolster the prevention and recovery of fraud losses in welfare, tax and COVID Business Loans, and prosecute those who have defrauded the public purse - this included the establishment of the Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA).

Fraud is a hidden crime and the Government’s focus remains on detecting and recovering as much of it as is possible. That is done by deploying cutting edge tools supported by world leading expertise to find and recover as much fraud as possible.