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1138693

	registered interest
	date	12/07/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Universal Credit: Fraud
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent steps he is taking to tackle universal credit fraud.
	tabling member constituency	Coventry South
	tabling member printed	Mr Jim Cunningham
	title	House of Commons Tabled Parliamentary Question 2017/19 276511
	uin	276511
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/07/2019 answer text <p>The Department takes its obligation to prevent, detect and investigate fraud very seriously and will investigate all claims where fraud may have been committed. We have recently set up a dedicated team to investigate a specific type of emergent fraud, and we are also committed to the use of penalties such as prosecutions and tough financial penalties to discourage fraudulent behaviour.</p><p> </p><p>The Department has also recently been working to further improve knowledge and awareness of Universal Credit (UC) fraud amongst Jobcentre and Service Centre staff. Guidance has also been issued to ensure that all staff are aware how to quickly refer cases of suspected fraud to the Department’s Counter-fraud team.</p><p> </p><p>Most welfare losses, across Government, arise from claimants failing to report changes of circumstances. UC provides a single, digital interface through which claimants can more easily report these changes. UC also allows us to adjust benefit entitlement in line with changing circumstances in real time. Internal and external data matches are increasingly helping to inform benefit payments and alerting staff to check for any undeclared changes in people’s circumstances. Once UC is fully rolled out, we expect cross-welfare losses to fraud, error and overpayments to be reduced by around £1 billion per year</p><p> </p><p>As of June 2019, potential fraudulent advance claims equate to less than 1 per cent of all Universal Credit claims.</p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 17/07/2019 12:58:00 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	308 label Biography information for Mr Jim Cunningham

1138694

	registered interest
	date	12/07/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Universal Credit: Proof of Identity
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to ensure accurate verification of universal credit claimants who request an advance.
	tabling member constituency	Coventry South
	tabling member printed	Mr Jim Cunningham
	title	House of Commons Tabled Parliamentary Question 2017/19 276512
	uin	276512
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/07/2019 answer text <p>As of June 2019, potential fraudulent advance claims equate to less than 1 per cent of all Universal Credit claims.</p><p> </p><p>The Department has been working to improve knowledge and awareness of advances fraud amongst Jobcentre and Service Centre staff. Guidance has also been issued to ensure that staff are aware how to refer cases of suspected fraud to the Department’s Counter-fraud team.</p><p> </p><p>We are developing our service iteratively and improving any areas in the service that may currently be presenting issues, to minimise the risk of fraud while ensuring that we can continue to provide financial support to those claimants who need it.</p><p>We cannot share advance detail of the specific security improvements we are making but this includes improving our process for verifying a claimant’s circumstances.</p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 17/07/2019 12:46:01 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	308 label Biography information for Mr Jim Cunningham

1138699

	registered interest
	date	12/07/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Universal Credit: Fraud
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to support victims of universal credit scams.
	tabling member constituency	Coventry South
	tabling member printed	Mr Jim Cunningham
	title	House of Commons Tabled Parliamentary Question 2017/19 276513
	uin	276513
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/07/2019 answer text <p>The Department takes benefit fraud very seriously and is committed to taking appropriate action when it is detected.</p><p> </p><p>If a claimant has been the victim of fraud, and has not benefitted financially in any way, they will not be asked to repay the money. The Department considers all cases on their individual merits and decisions are made on the strength of the evidence provided.</p><p> </p><p>The Department has been working to improve knowledge and awareness of advances fraud amongst Jobcentre and Service Centre staff. Guidance has also been issued to ensure that staff are aware how to refer cases of suspected fraud to the Department’s Counter-fraud team.</p><p> </p><p>Most welfare losses, across Government, arise from claimants failing to report changes of circumstances, Universal Credit (UC) provides a single, digital interface through which claimants can more easily report these changes. As such, once UC is fully rolled out, we expect cross-welfare losses to fraud, error and overpayments to be reduced by around £1 billion per year.</p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 17/07/2019 13:47:42 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	308 label Biography information for Mr Jim Cunningham

1137725

	registered interest
	date	09/07/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Social Security Benefits
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the extent to which people are excluded from unemployment statistics as a result of not being eligible for social security benefits.
	tabling member constituency	Wansbeck
	tabling member printed	Ian Lavery
	title	House of Commons Tabled Parliamentary Question 2017/19 275194
	uin	275194
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/07/2019 answer text <p>The UK’s official measure of unemployment is produced by the independent ONS and based on the International Labour Organisation’s long-standing definition of unemployment: persons without work, available for work in the next 2 weeks, and who have actively sought work in the last 4 weeks.</p><p>The latest available statistics were released by the ONS on 11 June 2019 and show an unemployment rate (for ages 16+) of 3.8% - the lowest since 1974. This statistic is estimated using responses to the Labour Force Survey and is unrelated to a person’s eligibility for social security benefits.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 17/07/2019 13:35:08 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	4139 label Biography information for Ian Lavery

1137841

	registered interest
	date	09/07/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Flexible Support Fund and Universal Credit
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans her Department has to increase awareness of the (a) universal support and (b) flexible support fund.
	tabling member constituency	Bermondsey and Old Southwark
	tabling member printed	Neil Coyle
	title	House of Commons Tabled Parliamentary Question 2017/19 275211
	uin	275211
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/07/2019 answer text <p>Alongside the Universal Credit telephony and face to face support for non-digital and vulnerable claimants, The Help to Claim service is being delivered from 1 April 2019 by Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland. Some aspects of this were previously delivered by Local Authorities before 31 March 2019 under the name “Universal Support”.</p><p>DWP works together with Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland through the Help to Claim partnership to ensure that support is signposted for claimants and partners: this is not a fund but a support offer for claimants making their claim to Universal Credit through to receiving their first payment.</p><p> </p><p>The Flexible Support Fund (FSF) is a discretionary fund that work coaches can use to support eligible claimants to get closer to or move into work. On 11 January 2019, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions announced that the FSF could also be used more widely to pay for upfront childcare costs until the claimant receives their first wage. The availability of this fund is actively promoted in jobcentres and to all claimants who might benefit.</p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 17/07/2019 13:24:43 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	4368 label Biography information for Neil Coyle

1137863

	registered interest
	date	09/07/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Universal Credit
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the cost to her Department of fraudulent universal credit claims since the roll-out of universal credit.
	tabling member constituency	Vale of Clwyd
	tabling member printed	Chris Ruane
	title	House of Commons Tabled Parliamentary Question 2017/19 275122
	uin	275122
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/07/2019 answer text <p>The Department is open and transparent about the cost of fraud and error in the benefit system, publishing our National “Fraud and Error in the Benefit System” statistics each year which detail the amount we estimate is lost to both fraud and error across all benefits.</p><p> </p><p>The latest publication to Gov.uk was made on 9 May 2019 and contains estimates of fraud and error in Universal Credit. The publication can be found here: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-2018-to-2019-estimates" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-2018-to-2019-estimates</a></p><p> </p><p>As UC expenditure increases, we would also expect to see an increase in the value of fraud and error. We also expect a further increase as UC involves significantly expanding the Department’s caseload and expenditure to include Tax Credits, which were previously administered by Her Majesty’s Revenue &amp; Customs.</p><p> </p><p>The design of UC is expected to lead to a reduction in overpayments across welfare. UC allows us to adjust benefit entitlement in line with changing circumstances in real time. Internal and external data matches are increasingly helping to inform benefit payments and alerting staff to check for any undeclared changes in people’s circumstances.</p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 17/07/2019 13:42:09 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	534 label Biography information for Chris Ruane

1137865

	registered interest
	date	09/07/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Universal Credit
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the number of fraudulent universal credit loan claims since the roll-out of those loans.
	tabling member constituency	Vale of Clwyd
	tabling member printed	Chris Ruane
	title	House of Commons Tabled Parliamentary Question 2017/19 275123
	uin	275123
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/07/2019 answer text <p>Advances are designed to ensure that the most vulnerable claimants receive the money they need to live on during their transition to Universal Credit (UC).</p><p>It is important to make clear that the vast majority of claims to UC Advances are legitimate.</p><p>As at the end of June 2019, potential fraudulent advance claims equate to less than 1 per cent of all Universal Credit claims.</p><p>The Department takes this issue very seriously and will investigate all claims where fraud may have been committed. Indeed, we have set up a dedicated team to investigate this specific type of fraud.</p><p> </p><p>We are also committed to the use of penalties such as prosecutions and tough financial penalties to discourage this fraudulent behaviour.</p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 17/07/2019 14:19:07 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	534 label Biography information for Chris Ruane