DWP silent over whether Sunak was wrong to say PIP was being exploited, as fraud falls to zero 

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has refused to say if the prime minister was wrong to suggest that disability benefits were being misused and exploited, after new official figures showed the level of fraud has fallen to zero. 

The DWP figures, released this week, days before Rishi Sunak called a general election, showed that overpayment of personal independence payment (PIP) due to fraud had dropped to 0.0 per cent, a fall from 0.2 per cent the previous year. 

The figures were released just a month after Sunak (pictured) said in a speech – in which he announced cuts to PIP spending and other social security reforms – that he worried about PIP being “misused” and wanted to make it “harder to exploit”. 

These comments, and others made by Sunak, including calling for an end to what he called a “sicknote culture”, led to him being accused of whipping up hostility towards disabled people, and demonising and scapegoating claimants of disability benefits. 

DWP’s new figures show that the overpayment rate for PIP is now at its “lowest recorded level” of 0.4 per cent (£90 million) in 2023-24, with most of that due to claimant error, usually because the claimant had failed to report an improvement in their support needs. 

But they also show that fraud by PIP claimants fell from 0.2 per cent in 2022-23 to 0.0 per cent in 2023-24 (of total spending on PIP of about £21.6 billion), while fraud by disability living allowance claimants was estimated at just 0.1 per cent. 

Despite the striking figures, there was no discussion of this fall in the DWP report, or any suggested explanation. 

Asked about the figures, a DWP spokesperson said: “I have checked – the stats are correct, with PIP overpayments due to fraud at 0.0 per cent.” 

Asked if the department welcomed the PIP fraud figures, why it believed PIP fraud had fallen so low, and whether the prime minister was wrong to demonise disabled people, a spokesperson said: “Our reforms are not about fraud, they are about targeting help at those who need it most and making sure we have a welfare state that is fit for the future. 

“We support millions of people every year and are encouraging everyone to have their say and respond to our PIP consultation.” 

DWP measures fraud levels by reviewing a sample of more than 13,000 claims to check if there have been any errors by DWP or the claimant, or any fraud. 

The total amount of benefit fraud estimated from the reviews was £7.4 billion (2.8 per cent) in 2023-24, compared with £6.3 billion (2.7 per cent) in 2022-23. 

The majority of this fraud related to universal credit, at £5.66 billion in 2023-24 (10.9 per cent). 

Picture by Simon Walker, No 10 Downing Street

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