Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the prevalence of (1) fraud, and (2) errors, in the social security system in England and Wales in each of the last five years for which records are available.

Whilst the publication includes numbers for previous years, changes in recording methodology mean that comparisons cannot be made with years prior to 2018/19.

The Department’s estimates of fraud and error are published annually and are available on line via gov.uk. Fraud and error in the benefits system remains very low, with 96.5% of benefits paid correctly.

The vast majority of benefit expenditure is paid correctly, with front line staff working hard to prevent incorrect and fraudulent payments. We are constantly improving our processes and continue to invest in the use of data and analytics to identify fraud and to better target our investigations.

Once rolled out, DWP expects the high-level design of Universal Credit to lead to around £1bn in benefit savings each year from reduced fraud and error.