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 - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
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 - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
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 - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
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 Central)
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 - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
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 - Minister of State (Department 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.
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, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of (a) furlough and (b) other support provided by her Department to the cultural sector during the covid-19 pandemic on the retention of jobs in that sector.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department 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.
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 28 November 2022 to Question 92231 on P&O Ferries: Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, whether his Department has had discussions with representatives of P&O Ferries on the return of furlough funding since 28 November 2022.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
As per the response of 4 July 2022, reiterated on 28 November 2022, the government has repeatedly called for P&O Ferries to repay its furlough funding.
Asked by: Pat McFadden (Labour - Wolverhampton South East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make an estimate of the total cost of (a) fraud and (b) error arising from (i) purchases of personal protective equipment, (ii) NHS Test and Trace, (iii) Government business support schemes, (iv) the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, (v) the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme and (vi) other aspects of the Government's response to the covid-19 pandemic.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA), established in August 2022, works with government departments and public bodies to understand and reduce the impact of fraud against the public sector.
Accounting Officers have primary responsibility for managing the risk of fraud in their department. They are accountable for understanding and managing the risk of fraud within the schemes and services they are responsible for delivering. As such, the latest estimates for potential fraud and error loss in the government’s Covid-19 support schemes can be found in departments’ Annual Reports and Accounts, available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/annual-reports-and-accounts-for-central-government-departments.
The latest information on post-event assurance for Test and Trace and PPE Procurement can be found within the Department for Health and Social Care's Annual Report and Accounts 2021-22 (paragraphs 761 – 774);
Detail of The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s central estimate for estimated levels of fraud and error loss in the Bounce Back Loan Scheme can be found within their Annual Report and Accounts; and
The latest information on error and fraud from HM Revenue & Customs can be found within HMRC’s Error and Fraud in Covid-19 Schemes publication.
Asked by: Julian Sturdy (Conservative - York Outer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps the Government is taking to revitalise high streets.
Answered by Dehenna Davison
This Government is committed to supporting the businesses and communities that make our high streets and town centres successful. The Government has provided a comprehensive package of around £400 billion of direct support, including business grants, coronavirus loan schemes, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, and income tax payment deferral. This is alongside our steps to introduce an arbitration scheme to help resolve pandemic related rent debt through the Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Act 2022. Our package builds on long-term investment in our high streets and small businesses including through the £3.6bn Towns Fund, the Future High Streets Fund, and the 4.8bn Levelling Up Fund. In addition to this, the High Streets Task Force is continuing to provide essential support in placemaking and planning, and so far has supported 115 local leaders.
The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill is going further and builds on long-term investment in our high streets and small businesses. For example, this includes High Street Rental Auctions, a new permissive power for local authorities to require landlords to rent out vacant commercial properties to prospective tenants, such as local businesses or community groups.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate his Department has made of HMRC's rate of return on investment for (a) covid-schemes fraud and error and (b) tax compliance recovery.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
At Budget 2021, the Government announced an investment of over £100 million in the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce, to be in place for two years to April 2023, to combat fraud in the COVID-19 financial support schemes administered by His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, Self Employed Income Support Scheme and Eat Out To Help Out). Including amounts recovered through compliance work on the COVID-19 schemes before the taskforce was formed, HMRC expects to recover £1.1bn by September 2023.
On 13 October 2022, HMRC set out their plans in an issue briefing ”HMRC issue briefing: tackling error and fraud in the Covid-19 support schemes” to transition COVID-19 compliance activity to business-as-usual compliance teams by the end of September 2023.