Clause 19
9:00 am
James Clappison (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Hertsmere, Conservative)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Amess. I listened carefully to the detailed description of the amendment given by the hon. Member for Rochdale. Notwithstanding what he said, I have one or two concerns that the Committee should consider.
The hon. Gentleman might not have fully reflected on the effects that his amendment might have. He referred to the extension of the benefit sanction to include the case of one offence. In his opening remarks, he referred to that as one sort of an incident, but it is not; it is a benefit offence that would include all cases where somebody had been convicted of one or more benefit offences in any proceedings, had accepted an administrative penalty as an alternative to prosecution, or had agreed to be given a caution.
The amendment includes the word “offence”. Under the amendment, somebody who had committed an offence, including somebody convicted of an offence before a court, not only would be allowed to keep the money that he had wrongfully received, but would be given compensation as well when that was “attributable to a mistake”. However, the hon. Gentleman’s amendment mentions a “benefit offence”, so to talk about “a mistake” misses the point about there being an offence. It would follow that, if there were some element of mistake in the background to someone being convicted of a benefit offence—this particularly concerns me—such a person would then be entitled, under the terms of the amendment, not only to be allowed to keep the benefit that they had received, but to receive compensation as well. I look to the Minister’s response, but because the amendment uses the word “offence”, the courts could interpret it as covering cases in which somebody had been convicted of a criminal offence.
Paul Rowenrose—