The DWP will be given extra powers to get direct acccess to bank accounts to crack down on benefit fraud. The measure has been announced by Chancellor Rachel Reeves in the Budget.
She said £4.5 billion would be clawed back by the government using new measures to combat fraud in benefits. She said it was often carried out by criminal gangs.
She will expand DWP counterfraud teams. She told MPs that new powers would give the DWP ‘direct access to bank accounts’ – although she has offered no further details yet on the plans.
A number of measures are being announced in other areas. Among them are two ‘scandals’ she vowed to offer compensation over.
The chancellor has also announced £11.8 billion to compensate those impacted by the infected blood scandal in the Budget. She has also unveiled a package worth £1.8 billion to compensate the victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal.
Ms Reeves said: “The previous government also failed to budget for costs which they knew would materialise. That includes funding for vital compensation schemes for victims of two terrible injustices: the infected blood scandal and the Post Office Horizon scandal.
“The Leader of the Opposition rightly made an unequivocal apology for the injustice of the infected blood scandal on behalf of the British state, but he did not budget for the costs of compensation. Today, for the very first time, we will provide specific funding to compensate those infected and those affected, in full with £11.8 billion in this Budget.
“I am also today setting aside £1.8 billion to compensate victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal, redress that is long overdue for the pain and injustice that they have suffered.” She made the announcement as she vowed to stablise the public finances and rebuild public services.
She told MPs in the House of Commons the last government had left a £22billion black hole in the public finances. She said she was today releasing a line by line breakdown of this ‘black hole’.
Rachel Reeves said it showed “hundreds of unfunded pressures on the public finances”. The Chancellor told MPs: “The Office for Budget Responsibility has published their own review of the circumstances around the spring budget forecast.
“They say that the previous government, and I quote, ‘did not provide the OBR with all the available information to them’ and that had they known about these ‘undisclosed spending pressures that have since come to light’ then their spring budget forecast for spending would have been, and, I quote again, ‘materially different’.”
She also said she was proud to be the first woman chancellor. In her opening remarks, she said: “While this is the first Budget in more than 14 years to be delivered by a Labour Chancellor, it is the first Budget in our country’s history to be delivered by a woman.
“I am deeply proud to be Britain’s first-ever female Chancellor of the Exchequer. To girls and young women everywhere, I say: Let there be no ceiling on your ambition, your hopes or your dreams. And along with the pride that I feel standing here today there is also a responsibility to pass on a fairer society and a stronger economy to the next generation of women.”
Ms Reeves attacked the Tories: “Their austerity broke the National Health Service. Their Brexit deal harmed British businesses. And their mini-budget left families paying the price with higher mortgages. The British people have inherited their failure. A black hole in the public finances, public services on their knees, a decade of low growth and the worst parliament for living standards in modern history.”