HC Deb 06 November 1995 vol 265 cc583-4
6. Nigel Evans

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what initiatives have been taken to target those who fraudulently claim benefit. [39689]

Mr. Lilley

I announced in July my new strategy to move from detection to prevention and deterrence of fraud and abuse. The plan includes extra checks on benefit claims, matching of information on the Department's computers and the introduction of benefit payment cards in place of order books and giro cheques, starting next year. Over a five-year period, those activities will shift the focus of anti-fraud effort from detection and investigation to prevention and deterrence.

Mr. Evans

Does my right hon. Friend agree that stealing and fiddling benefits are appalling acts which cost the country hundreds of millions of pounds? The country will welcome my right hon. Friend's initiatives—particularly those which use new technology, the benefit payment card and the fraud hotline. When I visited the social security office in Preston a few months ago, I met someone who was working hard to crack down on fraud in my constituency. Will my right hon. Friend take the opportunity to pay tribute to all staff throughout the country who are dedicated to cracking down on benefit fraud, sometimes at personal danger to themselves?

Mr. Lilley

I certainly pay tribute to the work successfully carried out—particularly by officials in my Department—to detect and prevent fraud. Last year, the amount of fraud prevented by the Benefits Agency as a result was a record of more than £700 million. Obviously we want to move to prevention and deterrence in the future, and I am grateful for my hon. Friend's support.

Ms Lynne

Although I welcome any clamp-down on benefit fraud, may I ask the Secretary of State to tell the House why the Conservative Government stopped home visits in the 1980s? Can he further tell the House what he will do to make the Benefits Agency more efficient? Is he aware that £540 million was lost last year in over-payments of income support, the majority of which were due to official error?

Mr. Lilley

I seem to recall that the change in policy occurred during the Lib-Lab Government, at the behest of the International Monetary Fund, which demanded the immediate removal of a large number of bureaucrats. However, we are looking forward, not backward, and we are introducing these changes to improve the position and to clamp down on fraud. I agree with the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), who has criticised his own party for going slow on the effort against fraud and said that the Labour party has been linked to freeloaders for too long. I am glad that at long last the Labour party is beginning to support us in the changes that we are making.

Mr. Ashby

I am grateful that my right hon. Friend has now realised that benefit fraud is far more widespread and far greater than his Department had hitherto realised, but will he get the fraud officers in his Department to realise that it is a serious crime and that they should concentrate more on prosecuting and convicting offenders than on recovering the money? Can we see the police more involved in benefit fraud inquiries as well?

Mr. Lilley

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We are successful in securing a conviction when we take a case to the courts—some 95 per cent. of cases result in conviction. It is important that people should realise that they run the risk of conviction, but it is also important to get the money back from those who have wrongfully taken it. Those people may continue to have a lower level of entitlement to benefit, from which deductions can be—and are—made, and we get substantial sums back as a result.

Mr. Wicks

Does the Secretary of State accept that, after 16 long years of talking tough but acting soft, we would welcome a tough clampdown on social security fraud? Does he accept that one of the major reasons for fraud is the failure of social security recipients to declare earnings? Does he agree that we need moral leadership here today and that we have a golden opportunity to implement the Nolan report in full, including the declaration of earnings, so that, when it comes to the poorest—

Madam Speaker

Order. The question is totally outside the question on the Order Paper. We are talking about social security fraud.

Mr. Wicks

If honesty is good enough for the poor, is it not good enough for the House of Commons?

Mr. Lilley

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his role on the Opposition Front Bench and I have listened with considerable interest to the valuable contributions that he has often made on our topics in the past. I am sure that he will enrich the contributions and that in future they will be in order, but the point that he is making is rather trivial: people should obey the law and the rules—we are in all favour of that.