Clause 46
Welfare Reform Bill
6:00 pm
Anne McGuire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Disabled People), Department for Work and Pensions; Stirling, Labour)
I am happy to pick up on the hon. Gentleman’s point. It might be helpful in case of misinterpretation of the new burdens to say that the Government do not anticipate that the clauses and Government amendments will impose any new burdens on local authorities. They are there for the sake of clarity, so that when central Government impose new burdens on local authorities, there will be a principle to deal with it.
Perhaps it might be helpful for the Committee to understand that we anticipate that the powers will create efficiency savings. They should result in an efficiency savings of between £450,000 and £600,000 each year for DWP and local authorities because of the reduced need to conduct joint investigations to comply with current legislation. As I said when I opened this debate, about half of housing benefit frauds are linked to other benefit frauds. It seems appropriate to link the two, albeit with safeguards in place.
The hon. Member for Daventry asked for a specific statement about whether other agencies will be able to prosecute. There will be no agencies other than local authorities and, as the Government said earlier in the Bill’s progress, it is certainly not our intention to award such powers to any private sector organisation. With that, I trust that the Committee will accept the amendment.