Tax Credits (Hansard, 7 July 2003)

§ Mr. Laws
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what his estimate is of the total amount of money lost through fraud in the system of tax credits for the latest year for which information is available; and if he will make a statement. [96609]

§ Dawn Primarolo
The Inland Revenue's compliance strategy for new tax credits, which has been informed by the Department's experience with WFTC and DPTC including the study of a sample of WFTC and DPTC awards, will be placed in the House of Commons Library later this year.

§ Mr. Howard
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many calls have been fielded by the working tax credit and child tax credit helpline in each month since April 2002. [111381]

§ Mr. Webb
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer pursuant to his answers of 10 February 2003,Official Report, column 616W, on the tax credit helpline, if he will estimate the number of (a) calls received and (b) calls handled by the helpline in (i) February, (ii) March and (iii) April. [112724]

§ Mr. Lidington
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many calls to the Inland Revenue's children's tax credit helpline have been abandoned(a) in total and (b) in each week since 1 April 2003. [118036]

§ Mrs. Calton
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the average number of calls to the public helpline from those applying for or querying tax credits was each week in the past two months. [119513]

§ Dawn Primarolo
[holding answer 12 may 2003]: The following table shows the number of calls to the child and working tax credits helpline for Great Britain that were (i) received, (ii) handled and (iii) abandoned in each month since January 2003. These figures are based on a common set of definitions and are the final figures for these.
583W

Calls to the GB child and working tax credit helpline received, handled and abandoned, January to May 2003

(i) Received¹ (ii) Handled² (iii) Abandoned³

January 2003 851,851 771,464 80,387

February 2003 1,168,131 956,817 211,314

March 2003 2,486,846 1,701,266 785,580

April 2003 2,509,486 1,767,710 741,776

May 2003 1,999,973 1,679,627 320,346

¹ Where the caller selected an option from the call steering menu and was put in a queue to speak to an adviser.

² Where the caller spoke to an adviser.

³ That is, received but not handled.

Calls to the GB child and working tax credit helpline received, handled and abandoned, January to May 2003
	(i) Received¹	(ii) Handled²	(iii) Abandoned³
January 2003	851,851	771,464	80,387
February 2003	1,168,131	956,817	211,314
March 2003	2,486,846	1,701,266	785,580
April 2003	2,509,486	1,767,710	741,776
May 2003	1,999,973	1,679,627	320,346
¹ Where the caller selected an option from the call steering menu and was put in a queue to speak to an adviser.
² Where the caller spoke to an adviser.
³ That is, received but not handled.