§ Mr. FieldTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the answer of 3 April 2001,Official Report, column 154W, on tax credit fraud, if he will break down by (a) type of offence involved and (b) occupational group, the (i) penalties and (ii) prosecutions. [157873]
§ Dawn Primarolo[holding answer 10 April 2001]: Information on penalties is available only for the most recent 164 cases. Prior to that date, the information was held clerically and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. Information as to the occupation group is not routinely collected and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. The primary reason for applying penalties in each of the 164 cases is given in the table.
427W
Penalties Number Undeclared partner 60 Earnings from self-employment understated 25 Undeclared job 24 Other undeclared income 2 Undeclared or understated savings 21 Undeclared land or property 10 Working insufficient hours 11 False claim for child 5 False claim for child care costs 2 Other 4 Since my reply of 3 April 2001 there has been one additional prosecution in respect of Working Families Tax Credit, bringing the total to 16. The offences are given in the following table. The total number of offences is more than 16 as some individuals are prosecuted for more than one offence.
Offences Number False accounting 9 Theft 6 Going equipped to cheat 2 Conspiracy 2 Fraud 2 Deception 1 The occupation groups of the 16 individuals are given in the table.
Occupation groups Number Managerial and administrators 2 Associate professional and technical occupations 1 Clerical and secretarial occupations 3 Personal and protective services 3 Sales occupations 2 Unemployed 5