Clause 1 - Additional powers to obtain information
Social Security Fraud Bill
11:45 am
Mr Jeff Rooker (Minister of State, Department of Social Security; Birmingham, Perry Barr, Labour)
I shall be brief. To reiterate a point that I have already made, the powers to obtain information from persons who fall within proposed new subsection 2A(a) to (n) are restrictive and not on the scale of those used by the Inland Revenue, which can demand access to solicitors and accountants. The power in the Bill is very restricted.
We are still in discussion with industry on updating the list of staff—I want that to be clear. Nothing is set in concrete and we need flexibility because we genuinely want to take on board industry's concerns. We want a system that works to the best advantage of both partners in the attack on fraud. Our intention is to ensure that representatives in the businesses that we deal with always have the name and telephone number of a senior officer, so that if there is any doubt in their minds about the inquiries made to their organisation, they can approach that senior officer directly. We are still discussing that with the business community.
I do not think that it is our intention to publish to the wider world the list of authorised officers. I do not know quite what our intentions are at present, but I do not think that there will be a public notice outside the 14 units saying, ``These are the authorised officers'', or that we will post their names and work addresses on the internet. However, there will be named officers at the 14 points. When they change, we will issue new names, but we will ensure that businesses always have access to a senior officer with whom to check any doubts about inquiries. We are often approached with bogus inquiries, and it is difficult to know whether it is a genuine inquiry from another part of Government or someone in the private sector trying to discover information to which they are not entitled.