Clause 11 - Recouping Inland Revenue contributions
Child Trust Funds Bill
5:15 pm
Ms Ruth Kelly (Financial Secretary, HM Treasury; Bolton West, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman is correct to say that we envisage in the main recovering child trust fund contributions only where fraud or negligence is involved: for example, where a child trust fund has been opened for an ineligible child; a child tax credit claim giving rise to a supplementary contribution is discovered to be excessive; or indeed where more than one CTF account has been opened for an eligible child.
Although we are making every effort to minimise any risk in the design of the IT system—I have debated this matter with the hon. Gentleman before—errors are always possible, and payments could be made in error even though no negligence or fraud was involved. If that were to happen, it would of course be right for the Inland Revenue to try to recover any excessive payments. Not to do so would be unfair to others and an improper use of Government money.
The amendment, by restricting recovery to situations of fraud or negligence, would prevent us from doing that. Clearly the Inland Revenue will have to make a judgment as to whether it recoups the value of the mistaken awards or whether it tries to recover any interest on those amounts. I take it that the Inland Revenue would recover the gains on the amounts as
well as the actual amounts. The main point is that it would be an unfair use of taxpayers' money were it not try to recover excessive payments, and on those grounds I urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.