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1417508

	registered interest
	date	27/01/2022
	answering body	Treasury
	answering dept id	14
	answering dept short name	Treasury
	answering dept sort name	Treasury
	hansard heading	Business: Coronavirus
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will publish any strategy he has produced on preventing fraud in the coronavirus business support schemes.
	tabling member constituency	Erith and Thamesmead
	tabling member printed	Abena Oppong-Asare
	uin	113291
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 01/02/2022 answer text <p>The Government has consistently stated that fraud is totally unacceptable, and we are taking action on multiple fronts to recover money lost to error and fraud and, where necessary, taking legal action on those who have sought to exploit the COVID-19 support schemes. It was right to establish the schemes quickly and in a way that they could be accessed easily by the millions who needed support.</p><p> </p><p>Given the unprecedented efforts that the Government has made to protect jobs and livelihoods during this pandemic, it would have been impossible to prevent all related fraud.</p><p> </p><p>In designing the COVID-19 support schemes the Government followed the leading practice of the International Public Sector Fraud Forum on dealing with fraud in an emergency context. The dedicated Government Counter Fraud Function and Centre of Expertise re-prioritised its work to focus on COVID Financial Support schemes. It provided fraud risk assessment support, offered expert counter fraud advice, and created data driven tools to Government departments to help prevent, detect, and recover fraud. The Fraud Function continues to offer post event assurance support to Government departments to find and fight fraud.</p><p> </p><p>Robust measures were put in place to control error and fraud in the key COVID-19 support schemes from their inception. For instance, to minimise the risk of fraud and error and unverified claims, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Self-Employment Income Support Scheme were designed in a way to prevent ineligible claims being made up front and made payments for employees and businesses using existing data held on HMRC’s systems. That included cut-off dates around scheme eligibility and the need for customers to be registered for pay-as-you-earn online or self-assessment.</p><p> </p><p>To further bolster anti-fraud measures on HMRC-delivered COVID-19 support schemes, the Government invested more than £100 million in a Taxpayer Protection Taskforce of more than 1,200 HMRC staff to combat COVID-19-related fraud, which was announced at Spring Budget 2021. This Taskforce is expected to recover between £800 million and £1 billion from fraudulent or incorrect payments during the years 2021-22 and 2022-23. In addition, HMRC has so far stopped or recovered £743 million of overclaimed grants in the year 2020-21.</p><p> </p><p>For local authority administered business grants, local authorities are responsible for ensuring the safe administration of grants and that appropriate measures are put in place to mitigate the increased risks of fraud and payment error. Guidance for the grant schemes requires that local authorities have assurance plans in place which set out the steps they would take to minimise fraud. The Government has mandated pre-payment checks (company and bank account searches) as well as post-event assurance, and a Fraud Risk Assessment, as standard elements of this plan.</p><p> </p><p>Where grants have been paid in error, non-compliantly or to a fraudster, local authorities must seek to recover these funds and return them to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). If local authorities have been unable to reclaim the grant, the case may be referred to BEIS under the Debt Recovery Policy to establish the next steps. Local Authorities are required to demonstrate that they have taken all reasonable and practicable steps to reclaim incorrectly paid grant funds.</p><p> </p><p>In respect of the Bounce Back Loan Scheme, the Government continues to work closely with the British Business Bank, lenders, and enforcement agencies to tackle fraud and to recover as many fraudulent loans as possible. This is on top of the £2.2 billion worth of fraudulent applications that were prevented by upfront checks.</p><p> </p><p>In addition, as part of the Spring Budget 2021, the Government announced plans to significantly strengthen enforcement activity against fraudulent Bounce Back Loans, including new powers for the Insolvency Service to tackle rogue directors, and investing in the National Investigation Service to investigate serious fraud.</p> answering member constituency South East Cambridgeshire answering member printed Lucy Frazer grouped question UIN 113292 question first answered 01/02/2022 15:42:29 answering member 4517 label Biography information for Lucy Frazer
	tabling member	4820 label Biography information for Abena Oppong-Asare

1417510

	registered interest
	date	27/01/2022
	answering body	Treasury
	answering dept id	14
	answering dept short name	Treasury
	answering dept sort name	Treasury
	hansard heading	Business: Coronavirus
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what strategy his Department has put in place for recovering fraudulent loans or grants made as part of the covid-19 business support schemes; and if he will publish that strategy.
	tabling member constituency	Erith and Thamesmead
	tabling member printed	Abena Oppong-Asare
	uin	113292
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 01/02/2022 answer text <p>The Government has consistently stated that fraud is totally unacceptable, and we are taking action on multiple fronts to recover money lost to error and fraud and, where necessary, taking legal action on those who have sought to exploit the COVID-19 support schemes. It was right to establish the schemes quickly and in a way that they could be accessed easily by the millions who needed support.</p><p> </p><p>Given the unprecedented efforts that the Government has made to protect jobs and livelihoods during this pandemic, it would have been impossible to prevent all related fraud.</p><p> </p><p>In designing the COVID-19 support schemes the Government followed the leading practice of the International Public Sector Fraud Forum on dealing with fraud in an emergency context. The dedicated Government Counter Fraud Function and Centre of Expertise re-prioritised its work to focus on COVID Financial Support schemes. It provided fraud risk assessment support, offered expert counter fraud advice, and created data driven tools to Government departments to help prevent, detect, and recover fraud. The Fraud Function continues to offer post event assurance support to Government departments to find and fight fraud.</p><p> </p><p>Robust measures were put in place to control error and fraud in the key COVID-19 support schemes from their inception. For instance, to minimise the risk of fraud and error and unverified claims, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Self-Employment Income Support Scheme were designed in a way to prevent ineligible claims being made up front and made payments for employees and businesses using existing data held on HMRC’s systems. That included cut-off dates around scheme eligibility and the need for customers to be registered for pay-as-you-earn online or self-assessment.</p><p> </p><p>To further bolster anti-fraud measures on HMRC-delivered COVID-19 support schemes, the Government invested more than £100 million in a Taxpayer Protection Taskforce of more than 1,200 HMRC staff to combat COVID-19-related fraud, which was announced at Spring Budget 2021. This Taskforce is expected to recover between £800 million and £1 billion from fraudulent or incorrect payments during the years 2021-22 and 2022-23. In addition, HMRC has so far stopped or recovered £743 million of overclaimed grants in the year 2020-21.</p><p> </p><p>For local authority administered business grants, local authorities are responsible for ensuring the safe administration of grants and that appropriate measures are put in place to mitigate the increased risks of fraud and payment error. Guidance for the grant schemes requires that local authorities have assurance plans in place which set out the steps they would take to minimise fraud. The Government has mandated pre-payment checks (company and bank account searches) as well as post-event assurance, and a Fraud Risk Assessment, as standard elements of this plan.</p><p> </p><p>Where grants have been paid in error, non-compliantly or to a fraudster, local authorities must seek to recover these funds and return them to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). If local authorities have been unable to reclaim the grant, the case may be referred to BEIS under the Debt Recovery Policy to establish the next steps. Local Authorities are required to demonstrate that they have taken all reasonable and practicable steps to reclaim incorrectly paid grant funds.</p><p> </p><p>In respect of the Bounce Back Loan Scheme, the Government continues to work closely with the British Business Bank, lenders, and enforcement agencies to tackle fraud and to recover as many fraudulent loans as possible. This is on top of the £2.2 billion worth of fraudulent applications that were prevented by upfront checks.</p><p> </p><p>In addition, as part of the Spring Budget 2021, the Government announced plans to significantly strengthen enforcement activity against fraudulent Bounce Back Loans, including new powers for the Insolvency Service to tackle rogue directors, and investing in the National Investigation Service to investigate serious fraud.</p> answering member constituency South East Cambridgeshire answering member printed Lucy Frazer grouped question UIN 113291 question first answered 01/02/2022 15:42:29 answering member 4517 label Biography information for Lucy Frazer
	tabling member	4820 label Biography information for Abena Oppong-Asare

1419231

	registered interest
	date	02/02/2022
	answering body	Treasury
	answering dept id	14
	answering dept short name	Treasury
	answering dept sort name	Treasury
	hansard heading	Taxpayer Protection Taskforce
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on what date the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce became operational.
	tabling member constituency	Erith and Thamesmead
	tabling member printed	Abena Oppong-Asare
	uin	117090
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 07/02/2022 answer text <p>At Spring Budget 2021, the Government announced a £100 million investment into a Taxpayer Protection Taskforce to significantly extend HMRC’s work to tackle fraud and error in the COVID-19 support schemes that HMRC administered (Self Employment Income Support Scheme, Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Eat Out to Help Out).</p><p> </p><p>The taskforce became operational from April 2021 and HMRC committed around 1,200 full time equivalent staff (FTE) to recovering money paid out to incorrect and fraudulent claims.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Before the taskforce was established, HMRC deployed 500 FTE onto post payment compliance work on the COVID schemes, following Royal Assent of the Finance Act which provided investigatory powers on 22 July 2020.</p><p> </p><p>The taskforce will allow HMRC to undertake at least 30,000 compliance checks in total across three years, up to 2022-23. They are expected to recover around £800 million-£1 billion over two years in addition to the £536 million recovered during 2020-21.</p> answering member constituency South East Cambridgeshire answering member printed Lucy Frazer question first answered 07/02/2022 16:45:44 answering member 4517 label Biography information for Lucy Frazer
	tabling member	4820 label Biography information for Abena Oppong-Asare

1419233

	registered interest
	date	02/02/2022
	answering body	Treasury
	answering dept id	14
	answering dept short name	Treasury
	answering dept sort name	Treasury
	hansard heading	Taxpayer Protection Taskforce
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many times he has met with officials from the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce; and on what dates those meetings have taken place.
	tabling member constituency	Erith and Thamesmead
	tabling member printed	Abena Oppong-Asare
	uin	117091
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 07/02/2022 answer text <p>The Chancellor regularly meets with officials from teams across HMRC. It has been the practice of successive administrations that the Government does not disclose details of internal meetings.</p> answering member constituency South East Cambridgeshire answering member printed Lucy Frazer question first answered 07/02/2022 16:10:54 answering member 4517 label Biography information for Lucy Frazer
	tabling member	4820 label Biography information for Abena Oppong-Asare

1419552

	registered interest
	date	03/02/2022
	answering body	Treasury
	answering dept id	14
	answering dept short name	Treasury
	answering dept sort name	Treasury
	hansard heading	Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme: Fraud
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many enquiries HMRC has made as part of its random enquiry programme to investigate fraud in the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme; and how much money has been through that programme.
	tabling member constituency	Erith and Thamesmead
	tabling member printed	Abena Oppong-Asare
	uin	117910
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/02/2022 answer text <p>HMRC are taking action to tackle fraudulent behaviour. Anyone who keeps grant money despite knowing they were not entitled to it, faces having to repay up to double the amount they received, plus interest, and potentially criminal prosecution.</p><p> </p><p>The Government has invested £100 million in the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce up to 2022-23. They are expected to undertake 30,000 interventions and recover between £800 million and £1 billion.</p><p> </p><p>All claims are risk assessed and considered for further one-to-one intervention where necessary. Along with gaining operational data from completed compliance interventions, HMRC are also conducting a random enquiry programme into Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) claims to test the error and fraud rate in the general population. Cases are selected at random and there may be no obvious risk present.</p><p> </p><p>Random enquiry programmes are a part of the methodology employed by HMRC to develop the estimates of error and fraud. Therefore, providing this data in isolation does not give an accurate representation of compliance efforts on the CJRS.</p><p> </p><p>Data from the random enquiry programme along with details of CJRS compliance interventions will enable HMRC to publish new and updated error and fraud estimates in their Annual Reports and Accounts and accompanying technical note, which is expected in July 2022.</p> answering member constituency South East Cambridgeshire answering member printed Lucy Frazer question first answered 08/02/2022 12:17:07 answering member 4517 label Biography information for Lucy Frazer
	tabling member	4820 label Biography information for Abena Oppong-Asare

1438481

	registered interest
	date	07/03/2022
	answering body	Treasury
	answering dept id	14
	answering dept short name	Treasury
	answering dept sort name	Treasury
	hansard heading	Research: Tax Allowances
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what most recent estimate HMRC has made of the level of fraud in (a) the Research and Development Expenditure Credit, and (b) the SME R&D relief.
	tabling member constituency	Erith and Thamesmead
	tabling member printed	Abena Oppong-Asare
	uin	135690
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 10/03/2022 answer text 2020-21 is the second financial year where an estimate of the error and fraud in relation to the Research and Development (R&D) regime has been included in the HMRC annual report and accounts. The overall estimate of the level of error and fraud is 3.6 per cent of the estimated cost of the reliefs. Within this, 5.5 per cent relates to the Small and Medium Enterprises scheme and 0.9 per cent relates to the Research and Development expenditure credit scheme. The estimate is based on historic claim data, compliance results, and Tax Gaps, and by its nature is uncertain. This estimate does not differentiate between error and fraud and covers a wide range of non-compliant behaviours. answering member constituency South East Cambridgeshire answering member printed Lucy Frazer question first answered 10/03/2022 15:02:11 answering member 4517 label Biography information for Lucy Frazer
	tabling member	4820 label Biography information for Abena Oppong-Asare

1438484

	registered interest
	date	07/03/2022
	answering body	Treasury
	answering dept id	14
	answering dept short name	Treasury
	answering dept sort name	Treasury
	hansard heading	Research: Tax Allowances
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the number of R&D tax relief advisors operating in the UK.
	tabling member constituency	Erith and Thamesmead
	tabling member printed	Abena Oppong-Asare
	uin	135691
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 10/03/2022 answer text <p>Information on the number of Research and Development (R&amp;D) tax relief advisors is not available.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>At Spring Budget 2021, the Government announced a review of R&amp;D tax reliefs supported by a consultation. The consultation closed in June 2021, and at Autumn Budget 2021, the Chancellor announced a package of measures to target abuse and improve compliance. From April 2023, all claims will have to be notified in advance, be made digitally, include more details about the expenditure, be endorsed by a named senior officer of the company, and include details of any agent who has advised the company on the claim.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Therefore, HMRC will have enhanced data on R&amp;D agents from April 2023.</p> answering member constituency South East Cambridgeshire answering member printed Lucy Frazer question first answered 10/03/2022 15:03:18 answering member 4517 label Biography information for Lucy Frazer
	tabling member	4820 label Biography information for Abena Oppong-Asare

1438487

	registered interest
	date	07/03/2022
	answering body	Treasury
	answering dept id	14
	answering dept short name	Treasury
	answering dept sort name	Treasury
	hansard heading	Research: Tax Allowances
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent estimate he has made of the number of R&D tax relief advisers operating in the UK who are involved in submitting fraudulent or dubious claims for R&D tax reliefs; and what steps his Department has taken to tackle the activity of those advisers.
	tabling member constituency	Erith and Thamesmead
	tabling member printed	Abena Oppong-Asare
	uin	135692
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 10/03/2022 answer text <p>The Government is exploring broader options that consider the case for moving further towards statutory regulation of the tax advice market. As announced in November 2021, we will be consulting on this later in the year.</p><p> </p><p>At Spring Budget 2021, the Government announced a review of R&amp;D tax reliefs supported by a consultation. The consultation closed in June 2021, and at Autumn Budget 2021, the Chancellor announced a package of measures to target abuse and improve compliance. From April 2023, all claims will have to be notified in advance, be made digitally, include more details about the expenditure, be endorsed by a named senior officer of the company, and include details of any agent who has advised the company on the claim.</p><p> </p><p>Information regarding the number of R&amp;D tax relief advisers involved in submitting fraudulent or dubious claims is not available. HMRC’s programme of compliance activity addressing this risk posed by abuse of the R&amp;D regimes spans fraudulent behaviour as well as other types of non-compliance, such as error and mistake, and therefore covers a wide range of agents and advisors.</p><p> </p><p>HMRC has doubled the resource working on R&amp;D non-compliance, is utilising data and intelligence to improve the risking process, and is undertaking a Mandatory Random Enquiry Programme to improve understanding of the level of error and fraud in the R&amp;D regime.</p> answering member constituency South East Cambridgeshire answering member printed Lucy Frazer question first answered 10/03/2022 15:13:53 answering member 4517 label Biography information for Lucy Frazer
	tabling member	4820 label Biography information for Abena Oppong-Asare

1438490

	registered interest
	date	07/03/2022
	answering body	Treasury
	answering dept id	14
	answering dept short name	Treasury
	answering dept sort name	Treasury
	hansard heading	Research: Tax Allowances
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many full time equivalent HMRC staff have worked on tackling abuse of R&D tax reliefs in each of the last five years.
	tabling member constituency	Erith and Thamesmead
	tabling member printed	Abena Oppong-Asare
	uin	135693
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 10/03/2022 answer text <p>HMRC undertakes a wide range of compliance activity in relation to Research and Development (R&amp;D) claims and this work is undertaken across a number of teams, including specialist R&amp;D teams, the Fraud Investigation Service, and teams that also deal with other aspects of Corporation Tax.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The specialist teams who deal with non-compliance in relation to a range of incentives and reliefs, including R&amp;D, Creatives Industries, Venture Capital, Tonnage Tax, and Patent Box, currently have 244.9 full time equivalent team members. There are additional teams who, for example, work on R&amp;D as part of a wider role, such as those within Large Business and Fraud Investigation Service, who are not included in this figure.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Information regarding the number of HMRC staff involved specifically in tackling abuse is not available.</p> answering member constituency South East Cambridgeshire answering member printed Lucy Frazer question first answered 10/03/2022 15:04:35 answering member 4517 label Biography information for Lucy Frazer
	tabling member	4820 label Biography information for Abena Oppong-Asare

1438493

	registered interest
	date	07/03/2022
	answering body	Treasury
	answering dept id	14
	answering dept short name	Treasury
	answering dept sort name	Treasury
	hansard heading	Research: Tax Allowances
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what value of fraudulently claimed R&D tax relief HMRC has recovered in each of the last five years.
	tabling member constituency	Erith and Thamesmead
	tabling member printed	Abena Oppong-Asare
	uin	135694
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 16/03/2022 answer text <p>Information regarding additional tax revenue generated by HMRC’s compliance activity is available within HMRC’s annual report and accounts.</p><p>In addition, HMRC publish details about the Tax Under Consideration (TUC) in compliance cases broken down by risk heading: <a href="https://gbr01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gov.uk%2Fgovernment%2Fpublications%2Fhmrc-annual-report-and-accounts-2020-to-2021%2Fcustomer-compliance-our-approach-to-tax-compliance-and-large-businesses&amp;data=04%7C01%7CBethany.Douce%40hmtreasury.gov.uk%7Cb95b8f757fc043f98aa108da075f78e2%7Ced1644c505e049e6bc39fcf7ac51c18c%7C0%7C0%7C637830403863876896%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&amp;sdata=w1YTNJ2moJU53yU3qx6xMnIfTKi72hXO6MQLXuEp2OM%3D&amp;reserved=0" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hmrc-annual-report-and-accounts-2020-to-2021/customer-compliance-our-approach-to-tax-compliance-and-large-businesses</a>. This shows that HMRC currently has £655,181,793 TUC in relation to R&amp;D risk.</p><p> </p><p>HMRC do not break down the level of compliance activity between fraudulent behaviours and other types of non-compliance, such as error or mistake despite taking reasonable care.</p> answering member constituency South East Cambridgeshire answering member printed Lucy Frazer question first answered 16/03/2022 15:25:15 answering member 4517 label Biography information for Lucy Frazer
	tabling member	4820 label Biography information for Abena Oppong-Asare