Asked by: Phil Brickell (Labour - Bolton West)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 17 January 2025 to Question 22789 on Fraud: Coronavirus, what the total number of staff is who work on recovering overpayments on business support schemes in each year since 2020-21.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The COVID-19 business support schemes that were administered by HMRC were the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), Self Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) and Eat Out to Help Out (EOHO).
Information on the resources deployed on these schemes can be found in the HMRC Annual Report and Accounts 2022/23, where HMRC expected to deploy over 2,500 staff by September 2023 through the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce.
HMRC are committed to working with COVID-19 Counter Fraud Commissioner.
Asked by: Phil Brickell (Labour - Bolton West)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 17 January 2025 to Question 22789 on Fraud: Coronavirus, how many (a) civil and (b) criminal compliance actions HMRC has taken on covid-related fraud since January 2020.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The COVID-19 business support schemes that were administered by HMRC were the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), Self Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) and Eat Out to Help Out (EOHO).
HMRC remain committed to COVID-19 scheme compliance activity and will continue to prioritise and pursue the most serious cases of abuse.
As with HMRC’s approach to non-compliance in the tax system, HMRC address the majority of COVID-19 scheme error and fraud cases through cost-effective civil investigation procedures. Where appropriate, HMRC will conduct criminal investigations and seek criminal prosecutions if it is in the public interest, particularly where the behaviour is very serious or where a criminal prosecution will act as a strong deterrent.
HMRC are committed to working with the COVID-19 Counter Fraud commissioner.
Asked by: Phil Brickell (Labour - Bolton West)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much HM Revenue and Customs staff time and resource was dedicated to recovering funds from covid-19 (a) business relief and (b) procurement-related fraud in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
HMRC remain committed to COVID-19 scheme compliance activity and will continue to prioritise and pursue the most serious cases of abuse.
Part (a):
The main COVID-19 business support schemes that were administered by HMRC were the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), Self Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) and Eat Out to Help Out (EOHO). We have interpreted your request for details relating to business relief to relate to these grant schemes.
From tax year 2020/21 to date, HMRC estimate that c.3,500 staff have been deployed to recover overpayments on the COVID-19 business support schemes administered by HMRC (where one staff member is the equivalent of one full time staff member for one year).
Part (b):
HMRC has no functions in relation to the procurement processes and contracts awarded in relation to key healthcare related equipment and supplies. As such, HMRC would not generally investigate whether fraud has been committed in relation to the actual procurement or execution of such contracts, except where there was an ongoing investigation undertaken by other Law Enforcement Agencies concerning offences relating to one or more of HMRC’s functions, such as tax offences.
HMRC’s only involvement in stand-alone fraud investigations that might arise from procurement would be if there were issues in relation to one or more of HMRC’s functions, such as tax offences.
HMRC conducts thousands of civil and criminal compliance actions each year. A number of these relate to tax offences suspected of having been committed by those seeking and fulfilling government contracts relating to the procurement and onward supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and similar products during the COVID-19 pandemic. This work is undertaken across various teams within HMRC’s Customer Compliance Group.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether his Department has made an assessment of the (a) costs and (b) merits of each of the restrictions during the covid-19 pandemic.
Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The previous Government spent up to £400 billion on pandemic related interventions and programmes including 11.7 million employees that were furloughed through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, at a cost of £70 billion. 2.9m people on the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme received grants at a cost of £28bn.
The Chancellor has announced that she will appoint a Covid Corruption Commissioner, fulfilling a manifesto commitment. The main focus of the Commissioner will be pandemic PPE contracts. They will make sure everything that can be done, has been done, to get the public purse what it is owed.
The UK Covid-19 Inquiry has now been established. As set out in its Terms of Reference, the Inquiry will examine, consider and report on preparations and the response to the pandemic. In doing so, the inquiry will help identify lessons learned. The Inquiry published its Module 1 report, focussing on resilience and preparedness in July 2024. The government will carefully consider the Inquiry’s findings and recommendations, and will respond within six months.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will make an assessment of the potential (a) merits, (b) costs and (c) viability of establishing a financial compensation scheme for taxpayers who did not receive government financial support during the covid-19 pandemic.
Answered by Darren Jones - Minister for Intergovernmental Relations
The Government currently has no plans to assess or pursue such a financial compensation scheme.
HM Treasury provided an extensive package of support for individuals, businesses and public services throughout the pandemic, including an estimated £98 billion through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) and the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS). Together the schemes supported approximately 14.6 million employed and self-employed individuals, helping to protect jobs, businesses and livelihoods.
The previous Government provided support through the CJRS and SEISS 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. The SEISS paid out over £28 billion to nearly 3 million self-employed individuals and was one of the most generous schemes for the self-employed in the world. Those ineligible for the SEISS may have been eligible for other elements of financial support provided by the previous Government.
Asked by: Kirsty Blackman (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will publish a list of all media publishers that received funding from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
HMRC’s legal duty of confidentiality applies to information about specific Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) claims.
A Ministerial Direction allowed HMRC to publish information about employer furlough claims from December 2020.
The Ministerial Direction only allowed HMRC to have this data published for a length of 12 months, so HMRC can no longer publish information on employers who received funding from the CJRS from December 2020 to September 2021, when the scheme closed.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent estimate he has made of the total value of fraudulent claims under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme; and how much and what proportion of those claims the Government has recovered as of 17 January 2024.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Information on His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs estimates regarding the rate of error and fraud for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and the other COVID-19 support schemes administered by HMRC is available at the following link : https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/measuring-error-and-fraud-in-the-covid-19-schemes/error-and-fraud-in-the-covid-19-schemes-methodology-and-approach-an-update-for-2023
Information regarding HMRC’s compliance activity in the COVID-19 support schemes is available at the following link:
committees.parliament.uk/publications/42603/documents/211751/default/
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many people have been prosecuted for fraud relating to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme as of 12 September 2023.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Ongoing criminal investigation activity by HMRC against the covid support schemes has been reported in HMRC’s annual report and accounts 2022-23, which can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hmrc-annual-report-and-accounts-2022-to-2023. This ongoing activity has yet to be concluded within the criminal justice system and is subject to those timescales.
As of 12 September 2023, there has been one prosecution resulting in a conviction for fraud related to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS).
Asked by: Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will place in the Library of the House a list of companies that received payments under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
HMRC’s legal duty of confidentiality applies to information about specific CJRS claims. The rules of the CJRS allowed HMRC to publish details of CJRS claims made between December 2020 to September 2021 for a 12-month period only.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many organisations in the cultural sector received (a) furlough and (b) other financial support from her Department during the covid-19 pandemic.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
HM Treasury (HMT) and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have published a range of detailed statistics relating to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme. The information can be found on the GOV.UK website. Interim evaluations of these schemes were published in October 2022, and HMT and HMRC plan to publish the final evaluations later this year.
Alongside the support provided by HM Treasury and HMRC, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport provided over £1.57 billion of funding to the cultural sector during the Covid-19 pandemic through the Culture Recovery Fund (CRF). This unprecedented funding supported nearly 220,000 jobs and 5,000 organisations. An evaluation of the CRF was published on the GOV.UK website on 21 April 2023 and includes further details of the support provided to the sector.