§ 3. Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome)If he will make a statement on the processes by which an individual is randomly selected for targeted review by the Benefits Agency. [63184]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle)Targeted reviews are made on claims to income support and income-based 5 jobseeker's allowance. Cases are not randomly selected. The national criteria are designed to identify claims where there is a high risk of the benefit in payment being incorrect.
§ Mr. HeathI am most grateful to the Minister for that reply. A constituent who is grievously ill and living in very difficult circumstances has been checked in respect of various benefits five times a year since 1993. I fully accept the need continually to review people in receipt of benefits where there are reasonable grounds for suspicion of abuse, but can it be right that an individual is randomly selected or targeted with such frequency when no adverse findings have been made?
§ Angela EagleI think that I am aware of the case to which the hon. Gentleman refers, but I certainly do not wish to discuss it across the Floor of the House. The best thing would be for the hon. Gentleman to contact me so that we can discuss the case in detail. It is highly unusual for someone to be checked so many times every year for that number of years. That is not meant to happen. There is meant to be no more than one check a year for each benefit received. Targeted reviews are intended to check incorrect applications of income support; the all-work test would apply to another benefit and so on, down the benefits system. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman's constituent has fallen foul of some of those tests. If the hon. Gentleman contacts me, we can discuss the matter in detail in a more private place.
§ Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst)Can the Minister confirm that the Benefits Agency security investigation service currently has enough money to discharge its duties? Will she comment on whether it is likely to achieve its targets this year?
§ Angela EagleThe right hon. Gentleman will know that we are doing a lot of work to put in place a comprehensive new framework to ensure that fraud is minimised, and that we are well aware of the importance of that framework. I can confirm to the right hon. Gentleman that we believe that all the fraud investigation work, part of which he mentioned in his question, is properly resourced.
§ Mr. Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green)The Minister, in answering that question, should bear in mind the National Audit Office report last week, which said that, basically, the Government have made no impact on benefit fraud. More important, in answering the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), the Minister did not say whether the Benefits Agency security investigation service was properly resourced and would achieve its targets. Will she answer that question now?
§ Angela EagleThe targets have been set and we hope that the service will achieve them; otherwise, they would not have been set. However, I am certainly not going to bandy about speculation as to what will happen in future. We are confident that the service will be able to meet those targets. I might add that we take the National Audit Office report very seriously indeed, but the hon. Gentleman needs to be aware that it involves the year 6 1997–98, during which we inherited Tory policies on all these things. I ask him to look at what we do with fraud in the years ahead.
§ Mr. Duncan SmithThe Minister will bear it in mind that the Government's response to that report was to say that things can only get better. Let me put that previous question another way: will the Minister now guarantee that the Benefits Agency security investigation service will have enough money to achieve the targets set this financial year?
§ Angela EagleWhat I am saying to the hon. Gentleman is that we are resourcing fraud and all the many and comprehensive strategies—[HON. MEMBERS: "Resourcing fraud?"] We are adequately resourcing the fraud prevention strategies which we are now putting in place. We expect targets to be met. For example, just before Christmas we announced an extra £100 million for the verification project, which will enable all local authorities to do far more extensive checking on housing benefit and other benefit applications than ever before. The hon. Gentleman should wait and see what happens when we have been in government, so that we can get away from the inherited Tory legacy and start talking—[HON. MEMBERS: "You are in government."] We are in government, yes; but Conservative Members who pose about fraud need to reflect on the fact that the NAO report is a year in arrears, so that it covers some time when the Tories were in power.