Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Neil Coyle and Siân Berry

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th February 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Siân Berry]

Okay. Even with that title?

Joshua Reddaway: Even with that title.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

Q Joshua, you spoke about the Bill’s dual powers, both prevention and recovery. I just wonder, is it possible to quantify or estimate a percentage or lump sum figure of how much is expected to be saved from people who know they can no longer attempt to fiddle by not declaring capital or multiple accounts? Are you able to put a figure on that, or would you look for implementation before working on figures?

Joshua Reddaway: On how much fraud is created?

--- Later in debate ---

[Siân Berry]

Q Sorry, Chair, the second question I asked about the percentage of error was not answered. What percentage of error do you think would be acceptable, in terms of innocent people being targeted for investigation?

Andrew Western: I am not prepared to put a percentage on it. We would have to see what came out. We have done two previous trials on this and we are fairly confident in the mechanisms that are in place. That has underpinned some of the assumptions we have made. We are committing through this process to a test and learn phase so that we can keep errors as minimal as possible. Ideally, I would not want to see any errors at all, but ultimately we have structured this so that, were something to come back as a false positive, as it were, it would not lead to an immediate decision, because it would be passed to a human investigator for further investigation.

[Neil Coyle]

Q The first question is about legacy. The last Government were truly record-breaking. We now have a social security system with the highest ever fraud rates and with little action to tackle it. We heard from witness after witness today that the police have lacked the capacity and resource to tackle the problems. To what extent do you think the legislation is necessary to address the challenge that has gone untackled for over a decade?

Andrew Western: I think it is fundamental, given both the lack of previous action that you identify and a general modernisation of powers. The world is changing. The nature of fraud is changing, and the behaviours exhibited by fraudsters are different from those of 10 or 15 years ago. The previous Government tried to bring forward the third-party data measure, now likened to the eligibility verification measure, but it did not have the oversight and safeguards in place that we have now.

There are a number of totally new proposals in the Bill that are crucial. To your point about the capacity of the police, the powers of search and seizure will be particularly helpful in speeding up investigations into serious and organised crime, because we can crack on with that, as it were, and enter premises without the need to wait for co-ordinated action from the police.

The other totally new power that is really important here, and which I personally think is a fairness argument, is the ability to directly deduct from people who receive their income through means other than benefits or PAYE employment. Overall, it is a fundamental change to the way that we do it, and it is part of a broader package. As I said earlier, this saves £1.5 billion over the forecast period, but it is part of a broader suite of measures that amount to the largest ever intervention to tackle fraud of £8.6 billion over that period. Unfortunately, like many of these things, that number is so high because the level of fraud we have is so high.

Georgia Gould: I add that the PSFA measures are entirely new. There have previously been no powers to investigate and recover fraud from the wider public sector, outside of tax and welfare. This is some of the highest-value fraud, through procurement or businesses falsely applying for Government grants, which is currently going un-investigated because of the resource pressures that you talked about. These are landmark new powers to investigate fraud across the wider public sector that have not previously been considered.