Speeches by McKinnell.

“Do you mean million?”

“Billion? Okay.”

“We are just talking about the fraud.”

“To go back to the Treasury, how are you incentivising Departments to prioritise this? It is a matter of prioritisation.”

“What is the 68%, then?”

“Oh, gosh. We are just talking about the fraud and error—”

“Looking forward, which Departments have the greatest potential to bring in further substantial recoveries? You have mentioned HMRC; are there other Departments that should be focusing?”

“Okay. That is quite confusing, but thank you.”

“Okay. Given that we are still at only around 10% of the estimated losses, and £9 billion of losses are still unrecovered, what would be your assessment, Tom, of how effectively the Government are assessing value for money and priorities when it comes to pursuing these recoveries?”

“The family of a terminally ill constituent contacted me in desperation last month after trying to resolve the pension issues of their family member since January. She died yesterday, with her pension still unresolved. Can the Minister be more specific for that family about what will be done to resolve this issue? It is…”

“How confident are you that we have the full extent of the potential loss? Are you confident in those assessments? Are you confident that each Department has maximised its ability to detect where that fraud might have occurred? What is the range for that £10.9 billion figure that you are working with?”

“I guess what I am trying to get to the bottom of, given that not everything is known, is the extent to which you are confident in the Government's assessment. Are you confident that they are targeting the right extent here? They are significantly undershooting in terms of recovering, but is it even worse than is appare…”

“Are the incentives working?”

“My first questions are to Tom and Mark. In its response to the covid counter-fraud commissioner’s report, the Treasury noted that the Public Sector Fraud Authority assessed that covid-19 spending attributed to fraud and error could be even greater than the £10.9 billion that has been quoted. This is probably a question…”

“Can I probe a little on the PPE example that you gave? That is fraud and error. To what extent does the error cover the ordering of PPE that was not required?”

“In hindsight, you could have broadened the scope to be fraud, error and waste. That might have been a useful exercise.”

“Is that included in the £10.9 billion figure?”

“So why is that not included in the £10.9 billion figure? Is that just for fraud rather than fraud and error?”

“That brings me to a question for you, Beth. What is the process by which the Treasury decides whether it is feasible or value for money to pursue the recovery of fraud and error, and what guidance does the Treasury provide to the Departments to determine that?”

“Sorry, I mean the value of the error. If much of that is error, it amounts to quite a significant amount of money.”