My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, for her contribution and I will do my best to cover her points.
It is common ground between us that if there is one person fraudulently claiming a benefit, that is one too many. I agree with that. By the same token, I think she would accept that if one increases the penalty for a particular crime, it acts as a greater deterrent. We must of course ensure that it is publicised, and the department will be seeking to do that. This is certainly upping the penalty, and as I understand their position, the Opposition accept that.
In relation to the progress made in tackling this, I should stress that I am referring to benefit fraud rather than benefit error, which means that if a case goes to court, fraud has to be proven. We are not talking about a slight mistake, but fraud, which in court would have to be proved beyond reasonable doubt. It is true to say that the level of fraud as set against benefit expenditure has come down only slightly from 2.2% under the previous Government to 2.1% under this one. I accept that it is certainly true that more work needs to be done.
The noble Baroness asked why we picked this particular figure. The reason is that overpayments between £4,000 and £10,000 in relation to fraud are the second largest single category of fraud overpayments—the most at the lower scale of fraud, as it were. That is why we have sought to focus resources on that particular group. Also, freeing the system up by allowing people to choose administrative penalties means that a matter does not go to court and is less work for the department, which means that we are able to focus resources on the most serious frauds. Numerically, they may be fewer but there are significant fraudsters at the top end of the scale where we feel resources should be focused.
The driver for raising the maximum amount is broadly to strengthen the range of measures that the department has to tackle benefit fraud. I am sure that it is not a silver bullet; we are not claiming that. But we feel that it should make better use of resources and act as a deterrent in relation to that particular group where there is a significant bubble of fraudsters for whatever reason, and it will enable us to focus resources on the most serious fraud cases. That is the scheme.
I will write to the noble Baroness in regard to the particular point of how we are aiming to get to 1.7%. Can she refresh my memory on the target date that we have given for that?