No holds barred in benefits clampdown
By politics.co.uk staff
The government is set to implement a clampdown on benefits cheats as it bids to cut Britain’s welfare bill by a quarter.
Ministers want to reduce the £5.2 billion sum lost every year through welfare fraud and administrative errors.
Chancellor George Osborne’s much-vaunted three-strikes-and-you’re-out policy will see welfare withdrawn for up to three years for those who repeatedly commit benefit fraud.
Lesser penalties, including a £50 fine for mistakes on a form which could “reasonably have been avoided”, will also be implemented.
And new inspectors will use data-tracking techniques to monitor suspicious benefit claimants, as part of a new investigatory force.
“We are reforming the system and stepping up our efforts to catch the benefit and tax cheats who are stealing money which is meant for the most vulnerable people in our society,” welfare reform minister David Freud said.
“When people are convicted we will get back the money we are owed by introducing tough punishments and stripping the assets of criminal gangs – my message to them is that benefit fraud is a crime that just doesn’t pay.”
Cutting the benefits bill to £3.8 billion comes alongside work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith’s plan to scrap a number of benefits and tax credits with a single universal credit.
That leaves Mr Osborne leading the charge against benefit cheats. He told the News of the World newspaper: “Frankly, a welfare cheat is no different from someone who comes up and robs you in the street. It’s your money.”
Child benefit, already set to be scrapped for those earning over £44,000, could also be hit further by being withdrawn for children over 16, according to reports.
Mr Osborne refused to confirm whether this was the case, but told BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show: “What I have sought to do is make sure we are getting as much as we can out of welfare and waste in government in order to ensure there are real increases in healthcare, schools, provision for early years, and in the big infrastructure investments that will help our economy grow.”
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