Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has taken recent steps to improve the detection of Universal Credit overpayments.

The Government is investing £1.4billion of funding over the next three years in order to combat fraud and error, which includes a further £613 million to facilitate a number of new initiatives, which collectively will stop an estimated £2.0 billion of loss in fraud and error over the next three years.

Our Fraud Plan, Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System, published on 19 May 2022, sets out our approach and explains how the additional investment is allowing us to recruit 1,400 more staff into our counter-fraud teams; establish a new 2,000-strong team dedicated to reviewing 2 million existing Universal Credit claims and develop enhanced data analytics as a means of preventing and detecting fraud and error.

More information on our Fraud Plan, can be found here:

Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

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