Minister lies about benefit fraud

Tony McNulty has repeated the old lie that Labour have cut fraud by two thirds since 2001.

The cost of benefit fraud now stands nationally at around £800m per year. Although that’s £1.3bn less than in 2001, it is still £800mn too much.

If Mr McNulty is competent, he knows he is lying.

1. The National Fraud Initiative identified probable fraud in council tax single person discount at a "cautious" £200m. That is nowhere in the DWP's figures. Kirklees Council recently reported that they alone foresee a saving of £900,000.
   
   
2. In Lambeth, use of voice recognition software identified over 18% of housing benefit claimants as benefit cheats. The government's national figure for housing benefit fraud is £190m (1.2%). At 18% this would be £2.85bn for housing benefit fraud alone.
   
   
3. The DWP pretends that incapacity benefit fraud is a mere £10m (0.1% of the amount paid out - last reviewed way back in 2000-1). Yet government also claims that there is scope to get hundreds of thousands of incapacity benefit claimants back to work. Do they really think that only 0.1% of those claims are fraudulent?

Swansea council have estimated that benefit fraud costs around £100 a household each year - over £2 billion nationally.

That too may be a "cautious" estimate.

Mr McNulty follows the Labour maxim that repeating the same lie often enough will get it believed.

Tony McNulty is not telling the truth about benefit fraud.