Angela Crawley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angela Crawley on 2016-01-27.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many lone parents have received letters from Concentrix since 1 January 2015 questioning their reported living arrangements and requesting proof that they are not cohabiting in order to assess their continued eligibility to receive tax credits.

Mr David Gauke

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) routinely carries out checks on tax credits claims to make sure people are receiving the right amount of money and identify fraudulent claims. Since November 2014, Concentrix has been carrying out routine tax credit checks on behalf of HMRC, in addition to the checks HMRC carry out themselves. There are more than 4 million tax credit claimants overall.

From the number of claimants contacted by Concentrix, HMRC and Concentrix do not categorise data under the heading of lone parent cases.