Clause 7 - Loss of benefit for commission of benefit offences
Social Security Fraud Bill [Lords]
4:45 pm
Mrs Jacqui Lait (Beckenham, Conservative)
I thought that considering the amendments together would be easier for the Committee, because amendment No. 52 is consequential on amendment No. 51.
The purpose of amendment No. 51 is to include the sanction implied in page 29, paragraph 106 of the explanatory notes to the Bill, which state:
``The offence for which the second set of proceedings has been brought must occur within a period of three years of the date on which the offender was convicted for the first offence.''
If such a hazard exists, it should be dealt with by the Bill. If the two-strikes provision is to be effective as a deterrent, it must be clearly enforced.
Amendment No. 52 sets out the measures that should be consequent on amendment No. 51. The most important factor is the use of fraudulent national insurance numbers, which are known to most of us as NINOs. That matter is dealt with in the second part of amendment No. 52, which would also provide for the keeping of a clear and precise record of offences that would enable an enforcing officer at the Benefits Agency or the Department to ensure that the claimant served any period of disqualification. The loss of benefit provision must be properly enforced to provide the deterrent that the Government seek.
Amendment No. 52 reflects the concern that we all have about the large number of national insurance numbers in operation. There are more than 81 million such numbers, and the Minister of State has helped us by breaking down where they come from. We understand that every person in the country, whether they work or not, has a national insurance number. Therefore, that accounts for about 60 million. Roughly 12 million NINOs remain in existence that belong to people who have died whose estates may affect other people's entitlement to benefit. That makes roughly 72 million, so about 9 million are going begging.
In a reply to a question about NINOs asked by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), the Minister of State said that
``only in 11 cases has it been established that the account was deliberately created in order to establish a false identity and fraudulently gain access to benefits.''—[Official Report, 13 March 2000; Vol. 346, c. 53W.]
The Balham experiment, which showed that there were about 220,000 mismatched numbers, resulted in about 166 arrests and six deportations for identity fraud. In a debate on the Bill in the other place, Baroness Hollis said that extending the experiment to neighbouring Benefits Agency offices in 1999 resulted in a further 46 arrests. The Balham experiment suggests that the problem with NINOs is much larger than the Department found when it made a computer check. I understand that the computer check is being run again. Is the Minister of State planning to extrapolate the Balham experiment to other benefit offices so that we can get a feel of whether the 9 million missing NINOs is made up of the 220,000 mismatched numbers multiplied by the number of benefit agency checks required? That may give us some idea of what percentage of those 9 million NINOs are fraudulent and, therefore, how tough the Department will need to be to sort out the national insurance numbers system.
Taking the two amendments together has made it easier for the Committee to debate the problem of benefit fraud. I look forward to the Minister of State's response.