My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (James Plaskitt) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
It has been brought to my attention that the reply I gave the honourable Member for Hornsey and Wood Green, Lynne Featherstone, on 5 June 2008 (Official Report, Commons, col. 1094W) contained incorrect information on the number of incidents of benefit fraud reported to the benefit fraud hotline. I apologise for this oversight.
The correct Answer should have been:
Information is not available broken down by benefit type. The available information is in the table.
Hotline 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 No of calls received 211,054 199,004 211,599 215,924 237,107 Internet Referrals 20,780 32,960 57,543 69,866 78,230 Total 231,834 231,964 269,142 285,790 315,337 Source: National Benefit Fraud Hotline