Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to recover the (a) incorrectly and (b) fraudulently claimed money through the (i) Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and (ii) Bounce Back Loan Scheme.

HMRC’s approach to recovering incorrectly claimed money through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) is to ensure that no one who has tried to do the right thing, but made an honest mistake, has any need to be concerned as long as they work with HMRC to put it right. Claimants were able to amend an incorrect claim without incurring a penalty within 90 days of receiving the grant, or their circumstances changing. HMRC also set up an online system to help people easily correct any mistakes. As of November 2021, HMRC have had circa £408 million returned to them by claimants who, unprompted, found an error in their claim, and over £719 million was returned to them by claimants who were entitled to the grant but decided, for a range of reasons, to repay it.

HMRC carefully examines CJRS claims for indications that they may be incorrect. This allows them to make the best possible use of their investigators and spare the vast majority, who are doing the right thing, from hearing from them. Since the launch of the CJRS, HMRC detected a range of attempted frauds, from individual opportunistic frauds, such as genuine employers manipulating CJRS claims, to organised attacks by criminal groups. HMRC commenced preventive compliance activity as soon as the scheme went live with a strong focus on stopping fraudulent payments to organised criminal groups. HMRC commenced post-payment compliance once they had the powers to do so in July 2020. They have established the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce (TPT) to provide a large-scale, dedicated capability to address fraud and error which, as of 30 November 2021, has opened over 27,000 compliance interventions. The TPT, where proportionate and necessary, refer more complex cases and those involving organised criminal groups for specialist investigation by appropriate expert teams within HMRC, including the Fraud Investigation Service (FIS). As of 30 November 2021, FIS has 21 ongoing criminal investigations and 7 live civil investigations into the most serious attempted frauds against the CJRS.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) administers the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBL). HMRC have supported BEIS in identifying and addressing fraudulent activity by exchanging data about organisations who have applied for and taken out loans under this scheme. HMRC have also used BBL data to identify broader compliance risks in the tax system.