Asked by: Sarah Pochin (Reform UK - Runcorn and Helsby)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much has been recovered by HM Revenue and Customs from furlough fraud to date.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
HMRC’s latest fully assured figures, covering up to the end of March 2025, have been published in the HMRC Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hmrc-annual-report-and-accounts-2024-to-2025
Across the three HMRC-administered COVID-19 support schemes Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), Self Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) and Eat Out to Help Out (EOHO), up to the end of March 2025, HMRC’s compliance effort on the COVID-19 schemes has prevented the payment of or recovered the overpayment of over £1.7 billion worth of grants, which is made up of £430 million prevented from being paid out and £1.3 billion recovered from overpayments.
Of the overall £1.3 billion recovered from overpayments, £920 million relates to CJRS.
HMRC identifies claims for compliance checks where the amount of the claim is out of step with other information. The risk that the claim is incorrect may be due to a range of reasons from an honest mistake through to fraud, therefore our data does not distinguish between error and fraud.
HMRC also introduced dedicated voluntary disclosure portals where claimants can voluntarily repay a COVID-19 support scheme grant, either because they have identified an overpayment of a grant or if they no longer require it. These repayment facilities have so far resulted in unprompted disclosures and voluntary repayments of over £1 billion for CJRS, £51 million for SEISS, and £2 million for EOHO.
Asked by: Sarah Pochin (Reform UK - Runcorn and Helsby)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will publish a list of businesses that have been required to repay fraudulently claimed furlough money.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Covid Counter Fraud Commissioner Tom Hayhoe’s final report to Parliament found many schemes were rolled out with huge fraud risks and no early safeguards – costing the taxpayer millions.Weak accountability, bad quality data and poor contracting were identified as the primary causes of the £10.9 billion pound losses – which were enough to fund daily free school meals for the UK’s 2.7 million eligible children for eight years.
This government has already recouped almost £400m of Covid support cash.
The government has already actioned many of the Commissioner’s early proposals. These include:
HMRC has a “Publishing Details of Deliberate Tax Defaulters” programme which publishes details of deliberate tax defaulters on Gov.uk, including the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Eat Out to Help Out.
Asked by: Sarah Pochin (Reform UK - Runcorn and Helsby)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much HM Revenue and Customs expects to recover from outstanding furlough fraud investigations.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Covid Counter Fraud Commissioner Tom Hayhoe’s final report to Parliament found many schemes were rolled out with huge fraud risks and no early safeguards – costing the taxpayer millions.Weak accountability, bad quality data and poor contracting were identified as the primary causes of the £10.9 billion pound losses – which were enough to fund daily free school meals for the UK’s 2.7 million eligible children for eight years.
This government has already recouped almost £400m of Covid support cash.
The government has already actioned many of the Commissioner’s early proposals. These include:
Asked by: Sarah Pochin (Reform UK - Runcorn and Helsby)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of revenue lost to furlough fraud committed during the pandemic.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Covid Counter Fraud Commissioner Tom Hayhoe’s final report to Parliament found many schemes - including Bounce Back Loans - were rolled out with huge fraud risks and no early safeguards – costing the taxpayer millions.
Weak accountability, bad quality data and poor contracting were identified as the primary causes of the £10.9 billion pound losses – which were enough to fund daily free school meals for the UK’s 2.7 million eligible children for eight years.
This government has already recouped almost £400m of Covid support cash.
The government has already actioned many of the Commissioner’s early proposals. These include:
Estimates of error and fraud for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) are published at: Error and fraud in the COVID-19 schemes: methodology and approach (an update for 2023) - GOV.UK
Asked by: Sarah Pochin (Reform UK - Runcorn and Helsby)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, of the firms reported to HM Revenue and Customs for furlough fraud, how many (a) have been investigated and (b) remain to be investigated.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
HMRC’s Fraud Reporting Gateway receives Human Intelligence reports on a variety of topics, including COVID-19 error and fraud, that are of interest to HMRC. This Fraud Reporting Gateway has resulted in 23,000 intelligence reports relating to the COVID schemes to assess, and a further 900 reports received from the Public Sector Fraud Authority.
Due to firewalls in place to protect human sources of information, the recipients of the intelligence do not know its origin. Therefore, once the intelligence is circulated, we are unable to directly identify and attribute yield generated from the Fraud Reporting Gateway contacts, or why an investigation was or was not started.
Asked by: Sarah Pochin (Reform UK - Runcorn and Helsby)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will publish a list of businesses that have committed furlough fraud but have not yet repaid the money.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
HMRC has a “Publishing Details of Deliberate Tax Defaulters” programme which publishes details of deliberate tax defaulters on Gov.uk for a period of 12 months. Since HMRC began compliance on the COVID-19 support schemes, details of 195 people have been published for deliberately overclaiming CJRS and/or Eat Out to Help Out.
The latest publication was in November 2025: Details of deliberate tax defaulters - GOV.UK
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many (1) individuals and (2) organisations have been (a) investigated and (b) prosecuted for fraud in relation to COVID-19 funds since 2020.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
HMRC have interpreted ‘COVID-19 funds’ as the ‘HMRC administered COVID-19 support schemes’, including Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), Eat Out to Help Out (EOHO), the Self Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), and the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) (previously the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy until 2023) administered Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS), Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), and Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS).
Although you have requested the data be broken down into individuals and organisations, HMRC do not hold the data at that level of detail. SEISS claims relate to individuals, whereas CJRS involves payroll, however, CJRS may also fall within the Income Tax (IT) or Corporation Tax (CT) regime. To add complexity, all charges for recovery of overpayments on the HMRC schemes are raised under IT legislation.
By the end of March 2025, HMRC had opened 53 criminal investigations into suspected fraud within the schemes and made a total of 99 arrests. There have been 4 convictions so far. Further ongoing criminal investigation activity has yet to be concluded within the criminal justice system and is subject to those timescales.
In this timeframe, HMRC also carried out more than 47,000 compliance checks using civil powers, where the amount claimed was out of step with other information. The risk that the claim was incorrect may have been due to a range of reasons from an honest mistake through to fraud.
DBT has worked with enforcement partners to tackle fraud linked to COVID-19 loan schemes. This includes the National Investigation Service (NATIS) and the Insolvency Service (INSS). To date, the Insolvency Service has obtained disqualifications against 2,595 directors, bankruptcy restrictions against 381 individuals and 82 successful criminal convictions in respect of COVID-19 financial support scheme misconduct. The Agency has also helped to secure more than £6 million in compensation related to COVID-19 financial support scheme abuse. Since 2020, NATIS has opened a total of 254 investigations covering both individuals and organisations. NATIS has secured 14 convictions up to November 2025.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to support people who were ineligible for government financial support measures during the Covid pandemic.
Answered by Darren Jones - Minister for Intergovernmental Relations
Decisions on eligibility for Covid-19 financial support were taken by the previous government.
The previous Government provided support through the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) and Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). The support was based on two principles: a) targeting support at those who needed it most; and b) guarding against error, fraud, and abuse, whilst reaching as many individuals as possible. Those ineligible for the schemes may have been eligible for other elements of financial support provided by the previous Government.
The current Government is working to improve living standards for everyone across the country. We are taking immediate action to support individuals, such as committing to no increases in employee National Insurance, Income Tax or VAT as we want to keep taxes low for working people. Driving growth is the Government’s number one mission, which will help individuals by boosting wages and putting more money in people’s pockets.
Asked by: Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what total quantified estimate they have made of fraud and error in the Culture Recovery Fund; what methodology, including statistical sampling or independent audit verification, they used to calculate that estimate; and how that methodology has evolved since the start of the fund.
Answered by Baroness Twycross - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
While the department has recently updated data on detected fraud and error, there is no overall quantified estimate of total (detected and undetected) fraud and error for the CRF.
For the core grant programmes delivered by Arts Council England, British Film Institute, and National Lottery Heritage Fund, and DCMS’s loans programme: fraud risk assessment, due diligence, upfront eligibility verification and post award sampling of grants took place across the Fund. This was either conducted or reviewed by independent auditors, however, the methodologies were not all based on statistical sampling so can not be brought together.
The total fraud and error detected across the CRF programmes is £12.9 million, consisting mainly of dual funding with the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and breaches of terms and conditions. Of this, £10.3 million has been recovered.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will take steps to support self-employed people who were excluded from financial support during the pandemic.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Decisions on eligibility for Covid-19 financial support were taken by the previous government. The previous Government decided to provide support through the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) and Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) based on two principles, a) targeting support at those who needed it most and b), guarding against error, fraud, and abuse, whilst reaching as many individuals as possible. Those ineligible for the schemes may have been eligible for other elements of financial support provided by the previous Government.
The current Government is working to improve living standards for everyone across the country. We are taking immediate action to support individuals, such as committing to no increases in employee National Insurance, Income Tax or VAT as we want to keep taxes low for working people. The Government has put growth as its number one mission, which will help individuals by boosting wages and putting more money in people’s pockets.