Child Benefit: Fraud and Standards
The question
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the National Audit Office report titled 'HMRC’s use of travel data to tackle fraud and error in Child Benefit payments', how many of the compliance enquiries issued to Northern Ireland claimants (i) were confirmed to be eligible, (ii) were found to have been incorrectly receiving the benefit and (iii) are yet to receive an outcome.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson
This government is committed to tackling Child Benefit error and fraud. Using international travel data has so far prevented nearly 10,000 customers claiming incorrectly, protecting around £60 million in taxpayers’ money.
HMRC issued compliance enquiries to 826 Child Benefit claimants in Northern Ireland out of the 23,794 compliance cases using international travel data between August and October last year.
Of the Northern Ireland enquiries, by 29 June 2026, 742 claimants were subsequently confirmed to be eligible for Child Benefit, 81 have been determined to have been incorrectly receiving Child Benefit and 3 enquiries remain open pending a final determination of entitlement. Where HMRC confirms that a customer remains eligible, payments are reinstated and any missed payments are backdated.
The proportion of customers found to be eligible for those cases opened between August and October 2025 is higher than would have otherwise been the case had they had a check of UK employment through PAYE upfront and removed from the compliance activity. This upfront PAYE check has been reinstated. Going forward HMRC also have introduced an upfront check to identify customers from Northern Ireland whose exit from the UK was to the Republic of Ireland and will not issue enquiries on these customers as part of this exercise. These changes are alongside giving all customers at least one month to evidence their entitlement before suspending payments.
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