Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill

Siân Berry Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 3rd February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)]

This Bill is, at heart, Conservative legislation left over from the most dark corner of the last Administration, and I have no qualms about opposing it. I will speak against giving it a Second Reading and, alongside my fellow Green Members, will vote against it later.

One of the changes that people wanted to see when they voted out the last Government was a welfare system that treats people with dignity and respect. Sadly, this Bill is instead based on blame and suspicion of people in need of help. It has a focus on fraud when a far bigger issue is unclaimed and under-claimed benefits due to a lack of awareness, complexity in the system and stigma. The people losing out are not helped by this legislation. The Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), set out the risk of damaging trust in and engagement with the DWP. We also have the risk of reigniting damaging and unfair stereotypes from some people involved in wider debates on these issues on social media, in newspapers and in broadcast media.

All in all, this Bill is deeply concerning and disappointing, and I had hoped better of this Government on this issue. I sincerely hope that Ministers will go back to the drawing board and come up with a new, fair and humane policy for dealing with what is a very small proportion of fraud in our benefit system.

I have had so much correspondence on this from constituents who are very concerned about the Bill’s sweeping powers to invade their privacy and treat them as suspects, not citizens. I am talking about pensioners who need pension credit, people who are permanently disabled and whose entitlement to employment and support allowance is clear and settled, people who are precariously underemployed or unemployed who need universal credit, family carers, and people who are simply on low wages and cannot make ends meet. These are citizens, not suspects.

The clauses about what appear to be routine and regular Government access to information from bank accounts for eligibility verification—not linked to serious crime—most concern me. I am also opposed to the clauses that increase powers of search and access to homes for more serious matters, and those that would remove driving licences from people who are having difficulty paying back to the DWP overpaid money due to what may simply be human error at a difficult time in their lives, not fraud at all.

I therefore suggest that the Government come back to this House with the parts relating to covid fraud and to contractors and businesses, and maybe add something on the much bigger problem of tax fraud. On the rest, I suggest that they start again with a process of genuine listening and co-production, with those who claim social security, about appropriate, fair, respectful and secure ways of ensuring that people in need of support can receive what they are entitled to, and to protect in a proportionate way against those who may seek to defraud the Government or local authorities.

This process would fit together very well with the recent proposal from the charity Mind in response to other upcoming changes to benefit processes, which asks for a new approach to the benefits system and a commission led by disabled people to redesign benefit assessments. Mind says that this kind of process would help to rebuild trust between disabled people and the DWP. I agree, and my personal view is that this Bill will do the absolute opposite.

In summary, I believe that this Bill should go no further, and I and my Green colleagues will be voting accordingly today, to stand up for our constituents’ rights and dignity and for social security based not on intrusion and suspicion, but on support.