Clause 4 - Arrangements for payments in respect of information
Social Security Fraud Bill [Lords]
11:15 am
Professor Steve Webb (Northavon, Liberal Democrat)
Table 3 on page 10 of the regulatory impact assessment shows that the utilities will have to do 60,000 searches for the DSS, while the banks will have to do 225,000 searches. I might be misunderstanding the terms, but one would have assumed that bulk searches and information would be easier to provide than individual information. That suggests that the banks have a stronger case for being paid than the utilities because they provide individually tailored information. Secondly, the banks are being asked to answer three times as many inquiries, all of which are individual, so they have an even stronger case for being paid.