Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to paragraph 5.13 of the Autumn Statement, CP 751 published on 17 November 2022, whether his Department plans to assign any of the £280 million allocated to target benefit fraud, error and debt to the large-scale exercise to correct state pension underpayments; and if he will make a statement on the progress of that exercise.

As set out in the Autumn Statement, the government is taking further action to protect taxpayer money by investing an extra £280 million between now and 2024-25 to target fraud, error and debt across the benefits system. This funding will expand fraud and error capabilities in DWP to help prevent abuse of the system. The expansion will better equip DWP to proactively review and correct Universal Credit claims that are at risk of fraud, and help prevent, detect and correct overpayments across the entire benefits system.

The Government is fully committed to ensuring that these historical State Pension errors, made by successive Governments, are addressed as quickly as possible. We have set up a dedicated team and devoted significant resources towards completing the exercise, with further resources being allocated throughout 2023. In line with previous commitments to publish further Management Information related to the State Pension underpayments exercise around the time of fiscal events. DWP will be publishing the next update shortly.

Overall, Official Error Underpayment rates for State Pension remain low, at 0.5% of benefit expenditure.