AN “over-emphasis” on benefit fraud is stopping people getting the help they need while representing a “tiny portion” of the £219 billion Britain lost to fraud last year, a charity has warned.

Anna Stevenson, benefits expert at Turn2us, said the last financial year saw an estimated £6.4bn overpaid benefits due to fraud.

This compared to £19bn — nearly three times as much — of benefits that went unclaimed, and £3.3bn in benefits that were underpaid.

She told the Morning Star: “Benefits fraud represents only a tiny portion of government spending.

“The over emphasis on benefits fraud in recent years has caused stigma which holds people back from being able to claim the help they’re entitled to.”

She made the comments after Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner told the Commons that official estimates had shown Britain has lost £219bn to fraud in 2022.

She told the Commons that the UK Fraud Costs Measurement Committee had revealed the amount at a conference in Portsmouth last week.

She said: “£219 billion is lost each year as a result of fraud — that’s equivalent to the entire central government’s running costs for its budget for health, defence and policing all put together.

“The figure doesn’t even include Covid fraud.”

Cabinet Office minister Alex Burghart MP had said: “We are engaged in a constant battle against fraud, we do so with colleagues across Whitehall, particularly in [the Department for Work and Pensions] and in the Treasury."

Labour MP Richard Burgon said: “It’s not just the lies by the former prime minister [Boris Johnson] that have damaged trust in politics: the contracts handed out to Tory donors and friends through VIP lanes did great damage too.”

MPs told the Commons that taxpayers’ money could be saved by moving civil servants out of central London.

Last January the High Court ruled that the government’s use of a “VIP lane” to award contracts to two suppliers of personal protective equipment during the pandemic was illegal.

Ministers have been accused of cronyism after some VIP contracts saw companies make vast sums of money with millions  wasted on fraud and equipment not fit for use.

Earlier this month the DWP announced a crackdown on benefit fraud.

It launched a £613 million “Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System” campaign last year to stop an estimated £4bn being lost in fraud and error over the next five years.