PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Business: Coronavirus (26 January 2022)

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many ongoing investigations are underway at HMRC to recover public money lost to fraud and economic crime through the emergency covid-19 schemes as of 26 January 2022.

Asked by:
Pat McFadden (Labour)

Throughout the pandemic, the Government’s number one priority has been to protect jobs and livelihoods whilst also supporting businesses and public services across the UK.

The overwhelming majority of people that claimed Covid-19 support did so legitimately. HMRC is also aware that mistakes can happen, which is why HMRC is supporting people who made a mistake to correct it. Those who keep money claimed from any of the Covid-19 support schemes despite knowing they were not entitled to it face having to repay up to double the amount they received, plus interest, and potentially criminal prosecution in the most serious of cases.

As published in HMRC’s Annual Report and Accounts 2020-21, over 1,300 Full Time Equivalent staff were deployed onto the COVID schemes during 2020-21. The full report can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hmrc-annual-report-and-accounts-2020-to-2021

The Government has since invested over £100 million in a Taxpayer Protection Taskforce of over 1,200 Full Time Equivalent of HMRC staff to combat fraud and error within the HMRC Covid-19 schemes, one of the largest and quickest responses to a fraud risk by HMRC.

The taskforce is funded for two years up to the year 2022-23 and will enable HMRC to increase their one-to-one checks to 30,000. The Taskforce is expected to recover between £800 million to £1 billion in overpayments.

Up to November 2021, HMRC issued over 74,000 letters asking claimants to check their claims and self-correct if they had got it wrong, and opened over 26,000 one-to-one checks where there was a risk that the grant had been overclaimed. HMRC’s 2020-21 compliance results for the Covid-19 schemes amounted to over £830 million, achieved by preventing losses by pre-payment activity and recovering overclaimed grants.

Taskforce performance for the year 2021-22 will be published in HMRC’s Annual Report and Accounts for 2021-22.

Answered by:
Lucy Frazer (Conservative)
2 February 2022