Fraud: Social Security Benefits
Justice
Philip Davies (Shipley, Conservative)
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many people convicted of benefit fraud were given a custodial sentence in the last five years.
Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam, Conservative)
The number of defendants sentenced to immediate custody at all courts for offences relating to benefit fraud in England and Wales from 2007 to 2011 can be viewed in the following table:
| Defendants sentenced to immediate custody at all courts for benefit fraud offences under the Social Security Administration Act 1992(1), England and Wales, 2007-11(2, 3) | |
| Number | |
| 2007 | 200 |
| 2008(4) | 264 |
| 2009 | 308 |
| 2010 | 209 |
| 2011 | 284 |
| (1) Includes offences under Social Security Administration Act 1992 as added by the Social Security Administration (Fraud) Act 1997, sections 111A and 112. (2) The figures relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences it is the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe. (3) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used. (4) Excludes data for Cardiff magistrates court for April, July and August 2008. Source: Justice Statistics Analytical Services—Ministry of Justice. | |