Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill

Debate between Lord Palmer of Childs Hill and Baroness Finn

Committee stage
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, many congratulations to the noble Viscount on the birth of his granddaughter.

Amendment 122D, in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Younger, touches on a principle that we have returned to time and again during Committee: that those institutions asked to play a role in the delivery of public policy must be treated not as passive instruments but as valued and active partners.

Clause 95, as currently drafted, enables the Secretary of State to recover costs from those individuals committing wrongdoing or fraud that the Secretary of State “reasonably incurs” in the exercise of the powers set out in this legislation. That is both logical and fair. However, what it does not do, and what our amendment seeks to rectify, is recognise that banks, too, will incur costs in the process of complying with the obligations imposed by this Bill. Those obligations are not trivial. Banks will be expected to carry out eligibility checks, respond to requests for information and facilitate direct deduction orders. These are significant operational functions, requiring staff time, system changes and compliance resources. The financial and logistical burden on institutions, particularly smaller and mid-tier banks, should not be underestimated.

We have heard repeatedly throughout Committee that the effective functioning of this legislation depends on strong co-operation between government and the financial sector. If that is true—we believe that it is, notably from what we have heard from the Government so far on the test and learn exercises—we must be honest about the responsibilities that we are placing on banks and we must be clear that those responsibilities come with real-world costs.

We understand that this arrangement between the DWP and the banks is new and, as such, it is unclear how many cases there may be to deal with. It may be a huge number, or it may end up being fairly minimal. Of course, we hope for the latter. More likely, this is an exercise of checking and counter-checking between the banks and the DWP in order to ascertain clarity of wrongdoing or not. It therefore begs the question of resources and costs. Can the Minister give us some estimates of the likely number of cases involved? Who will pay for the costs of managing these cases? If it is the banks, what discussions, if any, have taken place on the amounts? Is there an understanding of what happens if the costs become too great a burden on the banking sector? Is there some agreement that, if costs exceed a certain amount, the DWP—ie the taxpayer—will pay the excess?

We do not think that it is good enough to say that banks must comply. We must also ask how they can comply and what support or protections the Government are willing to offer them in return. Amendment 122D would provide a simple but important clarification: that banks, as defined in this Bill, are entitled to recover the costs that they incur as part of fulfilling their legal obligations. This is not about profit; it is about fairness, sustainability, and operational feasibility.

Let us not forget that we are asking private institutions to assist in the delivery of public sector enforcement mechanisms. That is a departure from many traditional roles and it is only right that we recognise the cost implications of that shift. We would not expect public bodies to take on additional responsibilities without due consideration of the costs involved, nor should we expect that of banks. They are not merely pipelines through which government powers are to be channelled. They are regulated institutions, fundamental to our economy, whose engagement in this regime must be underpinned by a mutual understanding of expectations, limits and recompense.

We have rightly asked for high standards of data protection, compliance and verification. We have spoken about building confidence in the system and ensuring proportionality in the exercise of power. That confidence must also apply to those partners on whom the success of the Bill relies. If we expect efficiency, we must also provide clarity, including clarity about the financial impact of compliance.

The other significant and important point to raise here is the impact of opportunity costs. We know that the banks will dedicate staff, time and resources to undertake these tasks, which will prevent them from undertaking core duties that would otherwise make them money. We cannot just focus on operational costs; we need to focus on the benefits that banks will miss out on as a result of complying with the Bill. Can the Minister therefore set out to the Committee how the Government will calculate the opportunity cost? Can she confirm that these costs will be determined in partnership with banks and where the money for the reimbursement of these opportunity costs will come from?

In the spirit of pragmatism and partnership, I urge the Minister to consider how the principles of our amendment could be taken forward. It seeks a small change to the text but would be an important signal to those we rely on to help deliver the objectives of the Bill that they will be supported, not simply directed. We all want to see this legislation succeed; we have made that point many times. For that to happen, those on whom it places demands must have confidence that they are part of a fair, transparent and properly resourced framework. Amendment 122D would help us move one step closer to that goal. I beg to move.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 122D, tabled by the noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie, and moved and spoken to so fully by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, would permit banks to recover the costs that they incur, as defined in the Bill. The principle behind the amendment is to recognise that, while banks play an essential role in supporting public authorities to identify and recover funds lost through fraud or error, the operational and administrative demands placed on them can be significant. Allowing banks to recover reasonable costs would ensure that the burden of implementing these public service functions does not fall unfairly on private institutions and would support a collaborative approach between the Government and the financial sector.

However, it is important to ensure that any cost-recovery mechanism is transparent, proportionate—how often we keep using that word—and subject to appropriate oversight. Questions remain about how the “reasonable costs” mentioned in the Explanatory Notes for Clause 95 will be defined, who will determine the quantum that can be recovered and what safeguards will be in place to protect individuals from excessive fees. There must be a clear framework to prevent costs from undermining the overall financial benefit to the taxpayer or placing undue hardship on those subject to deduction orders.

As the Bill progresses, it will be vital to clarify these details—I hope the Minister will help do that—ideally through the code of practice and ongoing consultations with stakeholders to maintain fairness, accountability and public confidence in the system. I await the Minister’s response, to fill the gaps that the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, and I have outlined, particularly what “reasonable costs” is meant to mean.

Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill

Debate between Lord Palmer of Childs Hill and Baroness Finn

Committee stage
Wednesday 11th June 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, our Amendments 67 and 68 in this group work together to introduce new clauses on annual reporting obligations under the Bill: first, on the use of powers conferred by Part 1 and, secondly, on the extent of fraud against public authorities. These are, on their face, modest amendments: they do not alter the structure of the Bill; they do not restrict the powers being granted; and they do not place unreasonable burdens on Ministers or departments. They are grounded in a principle that is both simple and fundamental to good governance: that Parliament and the public have a right to know how powers are being used and whether those powers are making a measurable difference.

Amendment 67 would introduce an annual reporting requirement on the use of powers conferred under Part 1. This part confers significant powers: powers to impose penalties, to recover funds, to compel the provision of information and to act across a broad range of public authorities. These are substantial tools in the Government’s arsenal against fraud and error, and we all agree that public money must be protected and those who exploit or defraud the state must be held to account.

But power must always be accompanied by oversight. The public has a legitimate interest in how these tools are used, how often, in what context and with what effect. An annual report will provide that vital lens of scrutiny. It will allow Parliament to see whether the powers are being exercised proportionately and effectively and whether any patterns or concerns are emerging that warrant further attention. Without such reporting, we risk creating a system where power operates behind closed doors: not necessarily abused, but unexamined; not necessarily misused, but not explained. That, over time, can erode public trust not just in anti-fraud enforcement but in the fairness and accountability of public administration itself.

This amendment would simply require the Minister to prepare and publish an annual report on the use of the powers granted under Part 1, beginning within 12 months of the commencement of Clauses 1 and 2 and continuing annually thereafter. The report must then be laid before both Houses of Parliament within seven days to ensure that this information is not only collected but promptly placed in the public domain.

This is not bureaucratic clutter; it is democratic hygiene. It provides Parliament with the tools that it needs to track the implementation of this legislation and to hold the Executive to account. It allows Select Committees, Members of both Houses and the public to ask informed questions and pursue necessary follow-up, where appropriate.

The second amendment, Amendment 68, complements the first by requiring an annual report on the estimated scale of fraud against public authorities, based on the Government’s internal estimates. We have heard repeatedly, both in this Committee and outside it, that public sector fraud is a serious and growing challenge, yet it remains notoriously difficult to quantify. Estimates vary, methodologies differ and the scale of undetected fraud, by its very nature, is hard to pin down.

Nevertheless, if we are to take the fight against fraud seriously, we must begin by being honest about the scale of the problem. This amendment would compel the Government to do just that—to report annually on their internal estimates of fraud against public authorities and to lay those findings before Parliament. Without a clear sense of the scale of fraud, we cannot effectively assess the return on investment in anti-fraud measures, we cannot identify which sectors are most at risk and we cannot hold departments to account for their own controls and responses.

Just as importantly, regular public estimates create pressure for improvement. When departments know that the levels of detected or suspected fraud will be publicly disclosed, they have a strong incentive to strengthen internal controls and to invest in fraud detection systems. The result is not only transparency but improvement in practice. This principle speaks to the heart of another one of our goals: that public authorities take increasing responsibility and ownership for identifying and tackling fraud internally. This amendment is a mechanism that would promote this.

It is worth emphasising that this amendment does not require, unfortunately at present, perfect precision. It does not ask the Government to do what is not feasible; it asks for a summary of internal estimates informed by the Government’s data, audits and risk assessments. That is both reasonable and achievable. However, I take this opportunity to call out that data should be improved. The variances in the estimates currently produced by the Government are massive, and it is clear that the Government themselves do not have a particularly accurate view of the challenge that we face. The Government must achieve more accurate data reporting in this area and make this available. We need to strive for a situation in which good, accurate data is provided to Parliament, not the wildly varying estimates that we currently see.

Ultimately, we cannot allow the state to hide behind averages, yet that is precisely what it does. It is all too easy for the Government to delay publication of the annual fraud landscape report; when it does appear, it risks being only the most convenient version of the truth—aggregated figures, smoothed-out estimates and numbers stripped of detail with no departmental breakdown, timeline or accountability. That is not transparency; it is evasion. A Government who lose billions to fraud cannot be allowed to drip-feed the facts on their own terms.

Together, these two amendments serve a broader purpose. They ensure that this legislation not just empowers the state to act but commits the state to account for how it acts and to explain whether its actions are having the intended effect. They are not burdensome or oppositional; they are the kind of clear, regular reporting obligations that should be part of the design of any legislation that grants wide-ranging enforcement powers and seeks to solve systemic problems. Let us remember that the effectiveness of anti-fraud efforts cannot be judged solely by the strength of powers on paper; it must be measured by their use in practice and by the visibility of that use to those whom the powers are ultimately meant to serve—the taxpayer and the public.

Transparency is not a hindrance to enforcement; it is an essential condition of its legitimacy. These amendments would not hinder the Government’s ability to act. On the contrary, they would enhance its credibility in doing so. They would signal to the public that the Government are not only determined to tackle fraud but willing to be open about their efforts and accountable for their progress. They would allow Parliament to play its rightful role in monitoring implementation, asking the right questions and proposing further refinements when necessary. In an age when public trust in institutions must be earned and re-earned, these small acts of transparency are the building blocks of that trust.

I urge the Minister and noble Lords across the Committee to support these amendments as practical, principled and proportionate contributions to a more transparent and effective anti-fraud regime. I beg to move.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, these amendments are very close to my party’s heart. I warmly welcome Amendments 67 and 68, which would place an important emphasis on transparency and accountability by requiring the Minister to publish annual reports on the use of powers under Part 1 of the Bill, as well as on the estimated scale of fraud against public authorities. Too often, no one knows about the scale.

These measures represent a vital step forward in ensuring that Parliament and, by extension, the public, receives regular, detailed information about how these powers are exercised and the ongoing challenges faced in tackling fraud. Such openness is essential because it is openness that solves these problems, builds trust in the administration of public funds and allows for informed scrutiny and debate. From my party’s perspective, these amendments align closely with our long-standing commitment to open government and evidence-based policy-making. By mandating annual reporting, they would help to illuminate the practical impact of the Bill and provide the data that is necessary to assess whether these powers are effective, proportionate and fair. This ongoing oversight will be invaluable in refining approaches to fraud prevention and recovery and ensuring that public authorities are both empowered and held accountable.

I look forward to supporting these amendments as the Bill goes forward, as well as to continuing to work to strengthen transparency and public confidence in this important area.

Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill

Debate between Lord Palmer of Childs Hill and Baroness Finn

Committee stage
Monday 9th June 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, our amendments in this group seek to understand the sort of relationship the Government envisage between the PSFA and other public authorities, how the PSFA is to be resourced and sustained, and how we can incorporate greater independent oversight into how the PSFA will cover its costs.

Last week, our discussions covered the effect of the costs of counterfraud investigations undertaken by the PSFA on other departments and public authorities. As our Amendment 8 recognised, the Bill’s current proposals permit the recovery of costs by the Cabinet Office from public authorities, which could potentially be to their detriment. As we and the noble Lord, Lord Vaux of Harrowden, pointed out, this could create a direct disincentive for those authorities to do the right thing and could lead them to fail to refer cases to the PSFA.

As it stands, the PSFA, as constituted under the terms of the Bill, cannot undertake proactive investigations into public authorities even if it has information which constitutes reasonable grounds for an investigation. This places a massive burden of trust on public authorities to refer themselves to the Cabinet Office before an investigation can begin. This burden of trust is often open to abuse, as my noble friend Lord Maude of Horsham demonstrated to the Committee in his interventions last week.

The Bill creates an additional and major disincentive for public authorities to do the right thing and invite an investigation because, under the its terms, it is likely that they will also be left out of pocket. As we will no doubt hear again in the spending review later this week, money is incredibly tight. Why would any public authority invite the Cabinet Office to undertake an investigation into fraud in its department, given that this would likely cost it money—something the Government have not denied and something they are unwilling to protect against? Amendment 23 seeks to understand this question further and is intended to provide the Government the opportunity to outline when they believe the Cabinet Office would seek to retain funds recovered on behalf of another public authority.

Can the Minister assure the Committee that if the money allocated to a public authority is retained by the Cabinet Office following a counterfraud investigation, this will not come at the detriment of any policies, programmes or schemes the authority in question was planning or already had in progress? Counterfraud investigations should deter fraud, combat wrongdoing and recover funds. If money has been allocated to a public authority, it seems both sensible and correct that any money recovered should be returned to the relevant authority and not siphoned off into the Cabinet Office.

I understand that Clause 10 states that agreement must be reached between the Cabinet Office and the relevant public authority before any money can be retained by the Minister. However, if a public authority has been subject to a counterfraud investigation, is the Minister certain it will have adequate agency in this discussion to make the case that it should have its money returned to it?

Let us imagine that a council has been subject to a counterfraud investigation by the PSFA. The money has been recovered; those responsible have been removed from office and have been subject to penalties under the terms of the Bill. There is no reason to suspect the council is at risk of being defrauded any further, but the reputational damage has been done. The council may even have lost money to the PSFA under the terms of the Bill, stretching its budgets even more tightly. The council is in a desperate situation, but it has done the right thing. The PSFA is asking to keep the money it has recovered.

Is the Minister certain that, in negotiating with the Cabinet Office over this question, a council in this state would have the capacity, resources and, crucially, agency and perceived legitimacy to do so? What are the reasons the Cabinet Office would give to justify why it needs this money? Would this be a conversation the council could expect to do well in or is this pretty much a done deal—the PSFA will keep keep the money it has recovered and the conversation would be more of a formality? Clarity on these questions now will help us and public authorities understand where they stand in these discussions and the extent to which the Cabinet Office will seek to augment its own budgets as a result of claiming funds originally allocated to public authorities.

In a similar vein, our Amendment 25 seeks to ensure greater oversight of the amounts that can be claimed by the Minister when undertaking their functions and exercising the powers provided for in the Bill. The Minister in the PSFA appears to be in a position to determine their own costs and to recover them under the powers outlined in Chapter 4 of the Bill. Our amendment seeks to incorporate greater oversight in this process, and to ensure that there is a check on the Minister’s powers to recover amounts, by introducing a role for a recognised judicial authority. Requiring a court or tribunal to award the reasonable costs incurred by the Minister will prevent the Minister charging potentially unreasonable costs without appropriate oversight. In our view, this is a sensible measure; we hope that noble Lords will support it and that the Government will adopt it as a sensible check on the power of the Minister under this part.

Our amendments in this group provide the Government an opportunity to address some questions that we have around where the money recovered from counterfraud investigations goes and whether the Government are confident that the discussion between public authorities and the Cabinet Office on this question will be a fair one that ultimately benefits the taxpayer. Furthermore, our Amendment 25 seeks to incorporate greater independent oversight over the amount of money that can be recovered as costs to the Minister to make sure both that this is proportionate and reflective and that there are safeguards on the power of the Minister; I hope that the Government will seek to incorporate it. I beg to move.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I see the first amendment in this group as a purely probing amendment to try to clarify matters; I trust and have every hope that, in the debates on the Bill, they will be clarified.

I ask the mover of Amendment 25 and the Minister to clarify something. I wonder about the change to the end of the amendment, which says

“awarded by a court or tribunal in relation to costs”.

I would have thought that that was covered already under Clause 13(2)(b)(i), which refers to

“costs that are awarded by a court or tribunal on or in relation to a claim for a recoverable amount”;

I agree with that. Then there is sub-paragraph (ii), which is about the Minister exercising their powers. Is that not covered by paragraph (b)(i) without adding it to (b)(ii)? This is a purely technical point because I think that it is there already.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My name appears on these amendments because I and my party are worried about powers being given to Ministers rather than to the courts. This puts the power in the courts because “the Minister” does not necessarily mean the Minister; someone quite low down in the Civil Service could make this decision. I think it is open to abuse.

I hope that when the Minister replies she can perhaps tell me how this fits in with a garnishee order on a bank. Garnishee orders have long been part of our legal system, whereby a debtor can collect money from the bank direct with an order from the court. I am amazed that we can have such a Bill here—I brought this up at an earlier meeting with the Minister—without “garnishee” appearing in it, because this is part of our current legal system. I invite the Minister and the mover of the amendment to incorporate that in their reply.

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, the amendments proposed in this group by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, provide us with an opportunity to question the Government on the mechanisms they propose using to recover money. It is vital, as the noble Baroness said, that the powers provided for in this part are proportionate and sensible.

We are particularly interested in Amendment 29, which chimes closely with our belief that a reasonableness test should be incorporated as part of the exercise of powers. In this instance, the Minister must “reasonably believe” that a liable person holds an account with a bank before the bank can be served with an account information notice. We need to recognise that compliance with the provisions in the Bill, however proper and correct, will come at a cost to banks. This amendment seeks to impose a duty of due diligence on the Cabinet Office, which, as the party responsible for issuing the notices, should rightly be held to a high standard before it starts imposing responsibilities and costs on third parties.

As it stands, the Bill risks creating a situation in which the work that should really be done by the Cabinet Office is shifted over to banks. It is feasible that a civil servant in the PSFA, without the need to meet a reasonableness test, could send out information notices to dozens of banks and wait for them to come back to them to confirm whether or not the person in question does, in fact, have an account. I am sure that the Minister currently anticipates that civil servants will send out only a limited number of notices to the banks that they believe are relevant. However, it is not unrealistic to imagine that, during a busy period, someone in the Cabinet Office could be tempted to serve all the banks on their list with a notice and wait for them to revert, having done all the work. More importantly, there is nothing to prevent a civil servant from doing so. This is a serious point: it risks the workload being shifted from the Civil Service over to the private sector, burdening banks with non-profit-making tasks that they are legally obliged to undertake. The Cabinet Office’s civil servants must strive to reach the highest standards; the law should be clear on this point.

Amendment 62, also in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, speaks to a principle that we have identified in our Amendment 55; namely, that a person against whom a deductions from earnings order has been served should not be held to an indefinite order if it has been suspended. The Bill, as it stands, would allow an order to be restarted at any point. For the liable person—and, in the case of orders against a joint account, for the other person with money in the account—this would create a great deal of stress and uncertainty. It also grants the Cabinet Office the ability to wield a great deal of power over the liable person, with few checks. The Cabinet Office should have the power to recover funds from the liable person that has engaged fraudulently, of course, but, in our submission, it should not have the power to threaten a liable person with a suspended deductions order for an unlimited period of time.

If it makes the decision to suspend an order, the Cabinet Office should be tied to a specific period of time in which it can restart the order. The Cabinet Office should be held to this standard, and the liable person should be protected adequately. We disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, that a suspended order should never be restarted, although we firmly agree on the principle that this power should be checked and should not be left open for an unlimited period of time.

I hope that the Government will consider these proposals as reasonable checks on the power of the PSFA in relation both to its ability to shift work over to third parties and to how it can wield these powers over liable people. We rightly expect the Cabinet Office to exercise these powers to a high standard. Ensuring that it does not outsource its workloads and that it concludes any checks or procedures within a certain time period are both proposals that speak to this high standard. I am sure that the Minister is confident that the officials in her department will meet these standards and, as such, that she will have no hesitancy in being able to back these proposals.

Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill

Debate between Lord Palmer of Childs Hill and Baroness Finn

Wednesday 4th June 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, this is a serious Bill. It deals with a serious problem. Fraud against the taxpayer is not a footnote. It is not a rounding error. It is a threat to public trust and the integrity of government. We on these Benches support the purpose behind the Bill. We want it to succeed. We want it to be strong, clear and capable of making a difference from the moment it takes effect. In the days ahead, we will approach Committee with purpose. We will work with the Government where we can; we will press them where we must. Our proposals will be focused, practical and aimed at making the Bill stronger.

At Second Reading, we raised a number of issues. These remain our priorities. We want proper oversight of the powers granted to the Public Sector Fraud Authority. We want strong review mechanisms. We want protection for those who may be exposed or vulnerable and we want recognition of the cost burden placed on those who are asked to deliver these powers. These concerns are not confined to one party or one corner of the House; they are widely shared. They reflect a simple truth: good intentions are not good enough. If we are to defeat fraud, we need sharp tools, clear lines of responsibility and laws that do not fold under pressure. That is the task before us and the spirit in which we will proceed.

We will be starting our Committee stage discussion by covering some of the proposals put forward in relation to the Cabinet Office. We broadly support the intention of these measures, but we have several key concerns and suggestions around the Bill as it stands. First, the role of the Public Sector Fraud Authority remains ill defined, particularly in relation to other public authorities. At present, the PSFA can only act when invited by the very bodies it is supposed to scrutinise. This is not effective oversight; it is an invitation to avoidance. Departments can simply choose not to refer themselves.

More importantly, if they lack the legal powers to investigate fraud internally, these powers should be given to them directly. If they already possess them but fail to act, a central authority merely serves as a convenient place to offload difficult or politically awkward cases. Yet the Bill does not address this gap. It does not strengthen departments or build capacity at source. Instead, it hands sweeping new powers to the Cabinet Office and places responsibility for tackling fraud across the entire public sector in the hands of a team of now just 25 civil servants. That is not a credible model. It concentrates accountability at the centre without providing the means to exercise it effectively and it leaves the rest of the system with little incentive to act.

PSFA officials are handed sweeping PACE powers with no direct authorisation or legal requirement to pass a reasonableness test and can refuse to undertake an investigation with no duty to report the reasons why. The risk is obvious. Complex fraud will be passed from hand to hand, referred and re-referred, until it disappears altogether into the undergrowth of government.

Secondly, the Bill grants the Public Sector Fraud Authority powers of remarkable breadth. These include the ability to obtain information notices, issue civil penalties, apply for search warrants under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and extract funds directly from bank accounts by order. These are not judicial decisions; they are executive powers exercised administratively.

Critically, the Bill allows these functions to be exercised not by Ministers but by civil servants, as junior as high executive officer grade, acting as authorised officers under Clause 66. There is no requirement for ministerial sign-off and, in many cases, no real mechanism for contemporaneous parliamentary scrutiny. The only oversight comes in the form of an independent reviewer appointed by, and reporting to, the same Minister whose powers they are reviewing. That reviewer cannot intervene, stop action or compel disclosure. They merely write a report after the fact, which the Minister is then required to publish. That is not accountability; that is delegation without control, power without visibility and scrutiny without consequence. A system that concentrates coercive legal powers in the hands of junior officials outside of clear ministerial direction not only is constitutionally careless but risks creating a grey zone of enforcement where power is exercised without responsibility and mistakes cannot be traced back to those elected to answer for them.

Ensuring that we find the right balance, where we develop the PSFA into an authority that has proportionate powers, a credible anti-fraud function and proper oversight, is the objective of our amendments today. Our first amendment, the purpose clause, is intended to ensure that the use of sweeping powers in the Bill is limited only to the purpose of identifying and preventing fraud and the recovery of public funds lost through fraud and error, as well as to strengthen mechanisms to prevent this in the future. We believe that it is a sensible, proportionate amendment that will ensure that the powers in the Bill are used only in pursuit of that explicit objective. A legal protection against the abuse of powers is a responsible safeguard and, given the extent of some of the powers granted in the Bill, anchoring that to the core purpose on which noble Lords across the House agree is, in our view, a reasonable measure.

Our role as the Opposition, as I said, is to question the Government, to challenge them on their reasons and their rationale and to make suggestions on how to improve legislation. I look forward to this Committee day, and those upcoming, to play that role. I beg to move.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, there is really not a lot to say at this stage. We support the purposes of the Bill. Obviously, it is not meant to be a contentious Bill, but the interesting thing is the fine line that it draws between chasing people who have made honest mistakes and those who enter into fraud. As with income tax—if we still use the old words from my accountancy days—the difference between evasion and avoidance is sometimes a very thin line. We will explore where you draw that line in terms of how you chase people for mistakes that have been made, perhaps on purpose or perhaps in error. We look forward to the progress of the Bill to see where those lines are drawn.