Liz Kendall has doubled down on her disability fraud lie to justify cuts in benefits.

The Work and Pensions Secretary said in February that “there are people who shouldn’t be on those [disability] benefits who are taking the mickey and that is not good enough – we have to end that.”

Now, challenged on those words, she has insisted that the government’s crackdown on disability benefits is vital to tackle fraud:

Liz Kendall refuses to retract comments saying too many people on benefits are ‘taking the mickey’

The DWP Secretary doubles down on those concerns, saying ‘£8bn a year is wasted on fraud in the benefit system’, in an interview with @AnushkaAsthana pic.twitter.com/bxsq8aI4d9

— ITVPolitics (@ITVNewsPolitics) April 9, 2025

She wasn’t telling the truth.

According to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) statistics for the financial year ending 2024, the overpayment rates due to fraud are:​

• PIP: 0.0 per cent fraud rate, equating to £0.​
• ESA: 1.5 per cent fraud rate, amounting to £190 million. ​

In contrast, Universal Credit (UC), with an expenditure of £51.9 billion, experienced a fraud rate of 10.9 per cent, resulting in approximately £5.66 billion lost to fraud. ​

These figures indicate that the majority of benefit fraud occurs within Universal Credit, not within disability-related benefits like PIP or ESA. There are disability elements to UC, it’s true – but the government has concentrated its attack on the other two benefits.

Therefore, attributing the £8 billion loss to fraud across the whole system to people claiming sickness and disability benefits is misleading.​ They are responsible for only 2.375 per cent of that total.

Perhaps the Work and Pensions Secretary should check her own department’s figures before going on TV to tell us lies.