Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent steps his Department has taken to reduce the (a) level and (b) net cost of benefit fraud.

Our Fraud Plan, Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System, published on 19 May 2022, sets out our plans for reducing the level of fraud and error in the welfare system by:

• Investing in DWP’s frontline counter-fraud professionals and data analytics, including recruiting 2,000 trained specialists to review over two million Universal Credit cases;
• Creating new legal powers to investigate potential fraud and punish fraudsters (subject to legislation);
• Bringing together the full force of the public and private sectors to keep one step ahead.

The full document can be found at: Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System – GOV.UK.

This builds on the existing work the department has done to address fraud and error, with savings from correction and prevention of fraud and error totaling £2 billion last year.

The Government is investing £1.4bn of funding over the next three years to combat fraud and error.