Work and Pensions written question – answered at on 22 February 2005.
Mr Colin Pickthall
PPS (Rt Hon Jack Straw, Secretary of State), Foreign & Commonwealth Office
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate he has made of the percentage of incapacity benefit claims that subsequently proved to be unsubstantiated in the last year for which figures are available.
Maria Eagle
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The level of fraud in incapacity benefit is very low, estimated at less than 3 per cent. of expenditure when last measured.
Evidence of fraud in incapacity benefit is investigated thoroughly. This resulted in 613 prosecutions in 2003–04.
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Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
