Clause 48
Welfare Reform Bill
6:15 pm
Anne McGuire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Disabled People), Department for Work and Pensions; Stirling, Labour)
It may not be possible to give the detailed analysis of the number of cases per year, for which the hon. Gentleman asked. However, I can give him some information, which I hope will be useful, on the number of cases that we anticipate, based on current trends. That may go some way to deal with the issues.
The clause is about deterring benefit fraud, rather than punishment. We are determined to tackle benefit fraud. When a person is convicted of a second benefit fraud within a specified period—we are asking the Committee to accept that the current period of three years should be extended to five—that allows us to reduce benefit entitlement or to remove it. The Department already uses that process to reduce benefit fraud, but it is especially aimed at deterring those who offend persistently and have been given repeated warnings to the effect that a further conviction would have an effect on their benefit. The current legislation works. We want to maximise the deterrent effect, without it running contrary to other legislation relating to re-offending, such as the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, under which some offences are spent after five years.
The hon. Gentleman asked for the number of cases that we would expect to capture by extending the legislation. We anticipate that, based on current trends, there will be somewhere between 30 and 50 additional cases per year. However, we should hope to see a reduction in the number of cases. If people realise that there could be a removal or a reduction of their benefit, that in itself will, hopefully, be a deterrent.