§ Mr. Frank FieldTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many officials of his Department in each of the last 30 years have been prosecuted for making fraudulent benefit claims.
§ Mr. Arbuthnot[pursuant to his reply, 22 February 1995, c. 245]: I regret that the information provided was incorrect. The correct information is as follows.
The figures requested are not available for any of the past 30 years. However, the Benefits Agency recently conducted a special survey to ascertain how many staff were prosecuted for benefit fraud, including instrument of payment fraud and benefit fraud where the member of staff was involved in fraudulent benefit claims by others, since 1 April 1994. There were 34 such prosecutions.