Member

My noble friend asked a number of quite detailed questions, which I will do my best to answer. First, the noble Viscount asked how overpayments come about. They come about from a range of circumstances. It may be that information that the department receives from a trusted third party—for example, real-time information—is incorrect; that the claimant correctly declares a change of circumstance, but the department does not action it at the right time; or that a policy or practice of the department is incorrectly implemented, either because of systems or because of individual error. I am afraid I do not have a breakdown on those two, so I cannot help the noble Viscount on that point.