Bank spying powers to tackle benefit fraud inch closer to becoming law
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A new bill that will grant the government powers to order banks to monitor benefit claimant’s accounts for fraud cleared another hurdle in Parliament yesterday after MPs passed the bill.
The Data Protection and Digital Information Bill was passed by 269 votes to 31 in the House of Commons yesterday evening and it will now be debated in the House of Lords.
The proposed powers aimed at cracking down on benefit fraud were slotted into the bill late last week.
Under current rules, the Department for Work and Pensions only has the right to request information from an individual claimant’s bank account if it suspects fraud.
But under the new proposals, the government would be able to compel banks to carry out broad regular checks on benefit claimants’ bank accounts to monitor for potential fraud.
This would be done by way of “account information notices”, ordering third parties, such as banks, building societies or businesses, to search for potential fraud by welfare claimants.
Mel Stride, secretary of state for work and pensions, last week insisted that “these powers will be used proportionately, ensuring claimants’ data is safely protected while rooting out fraudsters at the earliest possible opportunity.”
But MPs yesterday raised serious concerns about the new powers.
Conservative MP David Davis said: “We all want to stop fraud in the state system. That being said, this is the only time that I am aware of where the state seeks the right to put people under surveillance without prior suspicion, and therefore such a power has to be restricted very carefully indeed.”
Labour MP Stephen Timms, who chairs the Work and Pensions Committee, said the group has “received substantial concerns about this measure”.
“The state has long had powers where there were grounds for suspecting that benefit fraud had been committed. The proposal in the Bill is for surveillance where there is absolutely no suspicion at all, which is a substantial expansion of the state’s powers to intrude,” Timms said.
Some MPs were also worried the new powers could be used to monitor those in receipt of a state pension.
In response to questions from MPs about whether this was the case, culture minister John Whittingdale said: “It is not the case that the DWP intends to focus on the state pension.”
Labour MP Chris Bryant attempted to get the bill returned to the committee stage for further debate, but MPs rejected this proposal by 275 votes to 209.
A number of privacy campaigners and charities have also been quick to criticise the proposed powers, arguing they go too far and that the government is sneaking through the changes with minimal debate.
“Not only is it a phenomenal change for privacy, shoving this in at [the] last minute as an amendment to an unrelated bill is a total abuse of parliamentary process,” Silkie Carlo, the director of campaign group Big Brother Watch, wrote on X yesterday.