I beg to move amendment No. 6, in page 2, leave out lines 20 and 21.

With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments: No. 7, in page 2, leave out lines 48 and 49.

No. 8, in clause 4, page 8, line 5, leave out from `(c.39))' to end of line 6.

No. 9, in clause 4, page 8, line 8, leave out from `(c.23))' to end of line 9.

No. 10, in clause 4, page 8, line 12, leave out from `(c.39))' to end.

No. 11, in clause 4, page 8, line 14, leave out from `pipes' to end.

No. 12, in clause 4, page 8, line 16, leave out from `systems' to end of line 17.

No. 13, in clause 4, page 8, line 20, leave out from `section' to end of line.

This is the first time that I have been a member of a Committee under your chairmanship, Mr. Maxton, and I look forward to it. I am sure that someone who loves the Isle of Arran as much as you do will be a fair Chairman.

I shall not take too long to explain the amendments. They are based on our remaining worries about the Bill, which was amended in the other place along the lines that we suggested. In principle, we have no difficulty with the Government's requirement for information to eliminate fraud, because we are all agreed that it should be eliminated. However, certain parts of the Bill put too much pressure on people in both the public and the private sector. The amendments deal primarily with employees or employers who may feel pressurised by the requirements for information.

Baroness Hollis said in the other place:

Servants and agents can be the subcontractors of organisations. If a subcontractor held the information we needed, it would make sense to go to him as the servant or agent of the primary body rather than to the primary body itself. Servants are also the employees of a company. Putting it crudely, servants can be agents but also employees whereas an agent is a person authorised to act on behalf of another. —[Official Report, House of Lords, 1 February 2001; Vol. 621, c. 853.]

In the other place, Lord Higgins observed that the problem under discussion initially arose in relation to the Electronic Communications Act 2000, which was seen to place an unfair burden on employees to disclose information that they might not possess. That is still our fundamental problem with the Bill.

Lord Higgins also stated that he understood that the first version of the Electronic Communications Bill was sent back to the draftsmen because major objections had been made concerning the onus that it placed on employees to disclose information, as people employed at junior levels might have only partial access to such information. I seek the Minister's reassurance that that point has been adequately addressed.

Hon. Members will have dealt with housing benefit issues in their constituency surgeries. In Bromley, housing benefit administration is subcontracted to Capita, and that company would be categorised by the Bill as a servant or agent, as would its employees. However, Capita would have access merely to partial information so if employees of such a company are pressurised, they might resist helping the Government with regard to fraud matters. That must not be allowed to happen, but I understand that the Bill proposes a deadline of about 10 days for the receipt of information, and that employees will be liable to prosecution even if they have access only to partial information, as will employers such as Capita. Baroness Hollis did not address that matter in the other place, so I want the Minister to reassure me that my concerns are merely spectres.

I will briefly address the central point raised by the hon. Lady. The Department would not prosecute an employee or servant of an organisation. There is no prospect of that happening. The organisation would be the subject of any legal action.

Paragraphs 4.4 to 4.8 of the code of practice explain what would happen if there was a failure to comply. Concerns have been raised that we would prosecute employees, but we have made it clear that that will not happen. The draft code deals with the issue of subcontractors, and we shall conduct thorough consultations about that once the Bill receives Royal Assent.

People who do not have access to information will not be prosecuted. The Bill empowers the Government to target people who have access to information, if they do not comply, but I envisage that such situations would rarely arise.

Organisations may identify individuals as responsible for fielding inquiries, because the Department may initially write to a company to request information, and the letter may refer to the code of practice and ask whether a specific employee is to be designated to deal with the matter. In such circumstances, the employee would be categorised as the servant of the organisation. However, the organisation, rather than their employees, would be held responsible for non-compliance. I hope that that reassures the hon. Lady.

I am grateful to the Minister for his reassurance, which is as clear as it could be without being included in the Bill, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move amendment No. 14, in page 2, line 21, at end insert—

`(2AA) Any authorised officer wishing to obtain information under this section shall make an application to the person holding it through that section of the Department of Social Security responsible for the investigation of fraud.'.

With this we may discuss the following amendments: No. 2, in page 2, line 26, at end insert—

`(2BA) An authorised officer shall not give a notice to a person who falls within subsection (2) except with the consent of a magistrate, who is to give his consent only on being satisfied that in all the circumstances the authorised officer is justified in proceeding under this section'.

No. 3, in page 2, line 29, after `unless', insert

`a court order is obtained and,'.

No. 15, in page 2, line 30, after `grounds', insert

`according to the provisions of the Code of Practice'.

No. 16, in page 2, line 30, after `grounds', insert

`subject to the approval of a magistrate'.

No. 4, in page 2, line 37, after `officer', insert

`who has obtained a court order'.

No. 5, in clause 2, page 5, line 8, at end insert

`subject to the granting of the appropriate order of the court'.

I begin by assuring you, Mr. Maxton, that I will not try to discuss amendment No. 43, which is about the regulation of investigatory powers. I hope that we may take that starred amendment, which relates to clause 3, but unfortunately, much of what is contained in that amendment could be discussed with this group of amendments. I do not want to test your patience, Mr. Maxton, because I know that that would not be productive.

The amendments in this large group fall into two categories. Amendment No. 14 is about the single point of contact, while the remainder are about the independent scrutiny of requests for information made to private sector organisations.

I shall discuss first the single point of contact. Many of the organisations that will be asked for information still have considerable worries that a proliferation of people could contact them. I do not want to get into a debate about authorised officers and investigating officers, to which later amendments to clause 3 refer. One of the matters that emerged from the debates in the House of Lords, and on Second Reading in the House of Commons, was the sheer number of people from Government Departments and local authority departments who could contact banks, the telecoms industry and insurance companies.

In the Lords, Baroness Hollis said that there could be up to 500 such people from the Benefits Agency and approximately 1,000 people from local authorities. On Second Reading, the Secretary of State revised the figure down to 300 people and, by implication, about 600 local authority officers. Will the Minister give us more accurate figures? The Government said that they hoped to have more accurate figures available in Committee. Whatever the numbers are, they are large.

British Telecom has written to Lord Astor, who passed the letter to me. It mentioned 400 local authorities and 150 authorised officers—that is another estimate of the number of people who would be able to contact the private sector. WorldCom plc and NTL state that there are,

``13 Area Intelligence Units and a National Intelligence Unit. It is expected that the number of Authorised Officers who can request communications data disclosure will be between 2 and 10 per unit. DSS cannot give any figures but at a minimum there will be 28 Authorised officers but potentially up to 140.

The situation is made far worse in relation to Local Authorities where up to 400 will be granted the powers under the Bill.''

There is a wide difference in the estimates and confusion about the number of people involved, which should be clarified.

The principal difficulty is that, given the sheer number of people who may be able to contact the private sector, and despite all the safeguards in the code of practice and the fact that the authorised officer will have to include in the information his certificate of authorisation, it will be exceedingly difficult for companies to deal with the large number of people who may respond. The point of our amendment is what companies want—one point of contact through which requests should flow.

There is organisational difficulty with not only the sheer numbers involved but in keeping the list up to date. As we all know, there is a turnover in staff. When I worked in the civil service, people had a two-year stint doing any one job. It is difficult to keep track of numbers, names and people. Those of us who contact ministerial offices find that the private office changes on a two-year basis. Although people may specialise and have a career in fraud investigation in the Department of Social Security or the Benefits Agency, they may be promoted out of that grade and authorisation may not continue. Companies will find that they do not know with whom they are dealing and have not heard of the new person. There is therefore a practical reason for a single point of contact.

The amendment has another advantage. A single point of contact would make it much easier to scrutinise inquiries: we would know much more readily how many were being made and would have a much better prospect of checking that they were not being made inappropriately.

Exactly, and that point leads me neatly to the other amendments, which provide for independent scrutiny of the request for information. The matter has been dealt with at great length in the Lords, but anxieties remain. It is unusual for the Conservatives to call in aid Liberty, but in this case we share some of its anxieties about privacy and the need to treat everyone equally. The British Bankers Association and the telecoms industry have also expressed anxieties.

Let us consider our own records held by banks, building societies or insurance companies. If one requests information from credit reference agencies, one sees the accuracy of the information held. When I requested my records, the only information that they could give me was that I was a member of the National Trust, which I thought neither obvious nor helpful in a credit reference. Such information may go much wider than merely what might relate to fraud. It is therefore sensible to ensure that as far as possible an independent check is made of whether the information required by the investigating officer is necessary.

The Minister of State and the Under-Secretary will recognise the technique used for some of the amendments that we have tabled, as we used it during consideration of the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Bill. Some have been tabled to explore the potential and are contradictory. The source of independent scrutiny would under one amendment be a magistrate, but under another, be a court order. One of the amendments would provide a fallback provision, requiring specification in the Bill that the code of practice must be adhered to at all times. That is the least welcome proposal, but we hope that the Government will take on board the need for some form of independent check.

Here, we also get into joined-up government, because a number of issues cross over into the Taxes Management Act 1970, which insists on the obtaining of a magistrates court order before revenue officers can start an investigation. Liberty asks why suspected benefit fraudsters have less good protection than tax evaders, and one can only sympathise with that view.

The magistracy issue that emerged in the Lords was encapsulated by Baroness Hollis when she stated:

``Above all, we would be asked to produce to the magistracy the evidence we seek to establish''.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 1 February 2001; Vol. 621, c. 824.]

The BBA has examined that statement closely and contends that the reasonable grounds for believing would cover the person to be investigated. The Taxes Management Act would not require the whole case to go before the magistracy. We all recognise that to go to a magistrate and say, ``This is the whole case that we have'' when someone is trying to get information, is not the most practical way forward. The Taxes Management Act requires only reasonable grounds for believing. There is therefore, an independent scrutiny check in the Taxes Management Act that should be brought into this Bill.

We are also concerned that, without independent scrutiny, a mindset may develop, which causes people to say, ``This is the information we need and, therefore, whether it is germane to the case or not, we want to get it.'' The Government have been meticulous in trying to cover the problem in the code of practice and, as a result of the concerns that have been voiced, there will be checks in the system—management and national fraud investigation checks. An organisation could develop a mindset that leads it to acquiring information because it might be useful, whether or not it is germane to the case. That may be some years down the road, because it takes time for a mindset to develop, but without access to an independent check, we have a problem.

We do not mind whether a magistrate or a court order provides the independent check, but we believe in the necessity of a check such as the one that is already in the Taxes Management Act, in which the Inland Revenue must apply to the magistracy. We see no reason why similar safeguards should not be built into the Bill.

I support the thinking behind the group of amendments. I am attracted to amendment No. 14, which introduces the idea of a clearing house for such inquiries—that is how I interpret it. A single point of reference would make life a lot easier for those who have to supply such information. One can imagine certain providers of information having to deal with dozens of local authorities and different regional Benefits Agency sources. As the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) said, given the turnover of staff, the people providing the information will need to be sure that they are giving it to the right person. It would be much better to have a single letterhead or signed e-mail—whatever the format may be—so that the people providing information know that the inquiry is genuine, has come from one place and has gone through the clearing house system. Dozens if not hundreds of local authorities may ask for such information, which will make life a lot more complicated for suppliers of information. I am therefore attracted to the clearing house idea.

I also support amendment No. 2, which provides the example of the consent of a magistrate. As the hon. Lady said, the BBA draws an analogy with Inland Revenue practice, whereby corresponding requests for information must come from a general commissioner. When I raised the issue on Second Reading, the Minister's response in his winding-up speech was, ``Our people are good people, they are well trained, they are sought after. Job adverts ask for people who are trained to DSS standards.'' Nobody questions that the vast majority of staff are well trained and good people, but to say that the safeguards are therefore unnecessary is a step too far. It is a little like saying that most Members of Parliament are decent folk and that scrutiny of their activities is therefore unnecessary. [Hon. Members: ``Hear, hear.''] The fact that there are a few rotten apples makes such scrutiny all the more important. It is interesting that Conservative Members do not echo that sentiment.

The fact that the majority of people are good and well trained is not an argument for lack of independent scrutiny. I do not understand why the Minister thought that that addressed the point. There might be a rotten apple, so making sure that people are not just working on the basis of a hunch but have genuine independently verified grounds for their inquiry is an appropriate safeguard. If it is good enough for the Inland Revenue, it should be good enough for the DSS.

I have come to this subject late, and I have not followed the debates in the other place. Therefore, I may be going over ground that has already been covered, although I hope not. I am trying to obtain from the Minister an indication of the scale of the operation. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham talked about the large number of local authority officers who might be involved, as well as other staff with such powers in the Benefits Agency and elsewhere. Will credit card companies be deluged with hundreds of inquiries in the course of a week? Alternatively, will such inquiries be relatively rare? Clearly, how the matter is policed and how it is scrutinised depends on the scale of the operation. Independent scrutiny becomes more important in relation to large-scale operations. Will the Minister therefore tell me what is envisaged?

The code of practice, of which my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham has a copy, has not yet been seen by other Committee members. However, I know that the relevant section merely refers to management checks ensuring that the procedures are followed correctly. Clearly, doubt exists about whether that will be sufficient. One problem is that abuse will often not come from outside influences but from people within the administrative establishment.

A typical case dealt with by the Child Support Agency is of someone whose ex-partner is unemployed and pays little or nothing in maintenance, although, in fact, the ex-partner drives around in a new Mercedes motor car because he is fiddling the system. What would stop someone from the CSA talking informally with a Benefits Agency employee and asking him to do a fishing expedition to find out what the individual is getting up to? Would the police force be able to take advantage? Would a detective be able to look at people's bank accounts, which otherwise he could not, in order to find out more? These are some of my concerns. I would be grateful for further reassurance from the Minister about the scale of what is happening and how this cross-administrative fishing expedition might be properly controlled.

I will do my best to answer the hon. Gentleman's queries. He should not get me wrong—they are legitimate questions and it is important that the answers are put on record. We must compare like with like, however. I do not accept the analogy of the Inland Revenue with the Department of Social Security or, indeed, the police. It should not be forgotten that the Inland Revenue has powers to approach third parties without getting anybody's consent to inquire about an individual. The DSS does not have such powers—nor are we seeking them. Section 20 of the Taxes Management Act 1970 requires the consent of an Inland Revenue commissioner; that is not done in open court, for example. I cannot support the idea of us having to seek consent in open court, as it seems to me unjustified.

The powers of the Inland Revenue are far more intrusive than anything the DSS would seek. We could not go to a magistrate and say, ``We have reasonable grounds under the Act and want make such and such inquiries. Therefore, you should rubber-stamp it.'' Magistrates are there to exercise their judgment, so such a course of action would not be sufficient. We could not tell magistrates that we have signed a certificate stating that we have reasonable grounds and that, therefore, they could not exercise their judgment.

I turn to some of the points of detail. I do not say that hon. Members are casting aspersions on the integrity of DSS staff, but the underlying thrust of some of the questions is that those people cannot be trusted not to go on fishing expeditions and that their supervisors and managers cannot be trusted to ensure that the job is done properly.

People have also suggested that the training is faulty, but I do not accept that. There is a total of 5,000 investigatory staff in the DSS. We expect to sign up and authorise 175 to begin with; our expected total is some 300. Do not tie me down to the last five in those figures—but that is the kind of figure that we would predict. The Benefits Agency employs some 80,000 people—that gives hon. Members some idea of the scale of the operation—and 5,000 investigators. To start with, we plan to authorise 175 staff to work at 14 centres. There are 600 offices—there is a substantial difference between 14 centres and 600 offices.

Our present supervision of employees is rigid. Employees can fall foul of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and the Data Protection Act 1998, as indeed they do. The hon. Member for Beckenham did not want to jump forward to consider clause 3, but my notes for amendment No. 38 to that clause contain some relevant figures. In 2000, we prosecuted 18 staff, downgraded three, 21 resigned and in 30 cases investigations resulted in dismissal. We actively supervise and manage our staff; their footprints are checked and, if they stay too long on a case on a computer, they are asked about it. Random checks are made to ensure that there are no fishing expeditions. We know how long inquiries should take in the Department and, if abuse takes place, we sanction our staff. Abuse is not ignored—dealing with it is a crucial part of our undertaking as public servants.

No one doubts that efforts are made to supervise, but the Minister said himself that 18 staff were prosecuted, which proves that there are rotten apples in the barrel. That strengthens the case for independent scrutiny. Random checks are fine but, by definition, they miss the majority of cases. Why is the Department afraid of independent scrutiny?

To be honest, the hon. Gentleman's point strengthens my case. The idea has somehow got abroad that we are not managing, checking on or supervising our staff, but that is not the case. They are governed by legislation under other Acts of Parliament, as is everyone else. Even when staff simply remain logged on for too long on one case, it is noted and inquired about. Random and management checks are both part of the management process.

The hon. Member for Beckenham raised the question of inquiries through a central point. She suggested, too, that the powers could be exercised only in line with a code of practice. I can dismiss that last point first because, if that were so, the Bill when enacted would be subservient to a code of practice, which would not make sense. If one wrote into the Bill that the legislation would have to follow the code, one would be doing things the wrong way around. That does not happen with any other code of practice, and I do not understand why anyone would want it to be the case with this one.

Amendment No. 3 would require the DSS and local authority-authorised offices to obtain a court order in every instance. The Committee should bear in mind that, unlike the police and those at the Inland Revenue, who can obtain information about anyone, the need of the DSS to make inquiries is strictly limited. The provision relates only to benefit claimants and those included in the claim. When people claim benefits, they know that they are required to tell the truth. We can make inquiries under the Bill and need to do so only when we have reasonable grounds for believing that claimants are not telling the truth. Therefore, there is no analogy to the police and Inland Revenue. We will make it clear to people that what we are told when the claim is made may be checked with third parties and that, if there are grounds for believing that they have told us a lie, we have the right to check up on them.

The Bill provides safeguards against abuse because the powers can be used only when it is reasonable. The measures are governed by the statutory code of practice and the work of the authorised officer will be supervised. The authorised officers that will use the powers will not have responsibility for taking the decision about the benefit entitlement or whether a fraud has been committed. A chain of command of highly specialist people has that responsibility. If they abuse the powers, they will be found out and, under the powers of the Computer Misuse Act 1990, the Social Security Administration Act 1992 and the Data Protection Act 1998, they can be sent to prison for up to five years.

Obtaining a court order before using powers to require information would achieve nothing other than to condemn the taxpayer to even bigger bills. We estimate that it would cost the Department of Social Security, local authorities and the court system about £120 million a year to obtain prior authority before every inquiry. That is about one fifth of fraud in housing benefit and approximately one seventh of fraud in income support and jobseeker's allowance. Would that be a good way of spending £120 million? I realise that, for some, that might be a point of principle; nevertheless it is not chicken feed. It could take up to 265,000 hours of court time a year to provide prior authority for the inquiries made under the Bill. Those hours are currently spent on dealing with criminals.

Amendment No. 4 would require us to obtain a court order before a utility provider could be required to provide information about the quantity of services supplied to residential addresses. I want to make it clear again that the power to obtain information from utility providers does not apply to individual citizens. We will not receive names from gas, water and electricity undertakings. We will receive only addresses at which there is an abnormally high or low use of a service. It is then up to us to match the data with our benefit records to find names of individuals who may or may not be claiming benefit. If water or electricity is not being used, yet someone is claiming housing benefit, there is a good chance that the person is not living at that address. A court order would not assist in that respect.

Amendment No. 5 applies to electronic access. As I have said previously when talking about advanced technology, it would be useful if we modernised our Committee arrangements in a future century so that we could use a screen or a laptop. I could then show the Committee an example of electronic access. I have had the benefit of going to banks and insurance companies to see people log on, in respect of credit references, to individuals' addresses. For example, when people buy furniture, millions of checks are made overnight through the credit industry fraud avoidance system. Such systems are cheap and effective. They are simple, but they are also highly controlled.

Amendment No. 3 would prevent DSS-authorised officers from requiring information by electronic access without a court order. Electronic access costs about one tenth of the cost of requesting information by writing. It is a cheap way of making an inquiry—cheap on the access provider and cheap for the staff. Authorised officers must keep a record of the inquiries that they make by electronic access. Organisations that provide electronic access, such as credit reference agencies, will provide an audit trail of the inquiries made. Intelligence unit managers will be able to check to confirm that there were reasonable grounds for making the inquiries.

The powers to obtain electronic access are important. They are efficient: they place a minimal burden on business and are the cheapest way in which to obtain information. If we had to apply for court orders each time that we wanted such information, we would be held up for weeks. Electronic access can be completed within seconds of a person realising that an inquiry has to be made.

Amendment No. 2 would slow us down, but speed is not the only reason why I am arguing against it. It would require the consent of a magistrate. We have been using such powers since the 1940s. We have access to employers. We have the power to ask employers for information about their employees. The staff who will be carrying out inquiries under the Bill are the same people who, day in, day out, contact employers about employees, and have been doing so under the powers granted by statute for decades. I am not aware that a single complaint from an employer has crossed my desk since I was appointed to the Department two years ago. My staff have told me that if they ask nicely, they usually get the answers that they want. That is how they work.

The provisions concerning powers of inspection were consolidated in the Social Security Administration Act 1992. The previous Government extended them to local authorities in the Social Security Administration (Fraud) Act 1997, but they did not introduce powers to place problems before magistrates, although it is well known that local authorities face substantial fraud with regard to housing and council tax benefits, and we must tackle that.

The powers to make inquiries, the level of staff who make those inquiries, and their supervision, are all part and parcel of our current processes. My Department also matches benefit runs under the generalised matching service, and we operate under a code of practice concerning data protection that has been agreed with the commissioner. She signed the foreword to the last version of it, which states that it works well and that there are no areas of abuse.

With regard to amendment No. 2, the Minister offered a costing for forcing matters through open court, but has he tried to ascertain the cost of merely seeking a magistrate's approval? That would, presumably, be cheaper than a full court hearing, and it has been suggested by the British Bankers Association.

The Minister has stated that staff currently ask employers for information. They are asked principally for earnings information, which is germane to benefits entitlement, but the Bill refers to a wider range of information, such as bank statements. Surely that amounts to a difference of kind.

I am not seeking to give a false impression. Staff ask employers questions about their employees, such as their names, addresses, the date on which their employment began, their hours of work and their pay. They do not ask for further information that employers do not have a right to know about their employees.

The Bill would make it possible to inquire about a slightly broader range of information, but one must not get carried away about that. For example, if an employee denies having a bank account, it might be necessary to check that. If we think that we have been lied to, and we discover that an employee has an account and we confront him or her about the lie, that might be sufficient for him or her to cough up. In such a case, we would not need to gather further information concerning that account's statements, or the details of its direct debits. The mere fact that we can check whether such employees have bank accounts might be sufficient for them to admit to having misled us, or, perhaps, to plead that they had forgotten about the account and to offer us the information that we require. We do not want to trawl the depths of people's finances; the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) rolls his eyes, but such details might not be required.

I turn to the matter of the relationship between the Act of Parliament, as the Bill will become, and the code of practice. The Bill will become law, and the code of practice will provide guidance that must be followed. However, although a code of practice cannot override an Act of Parliament, amendment No. 15 would make the Act of Parliament subordinate to a piece of guidance. That does not make sense.

The Minister has, perhaps inadvertently, failed to answer my question about the cost of merely seeking a magistrate's approval.

I offer a ballpark figure of £60 million, but that is only an estimate. I mentioned the idea of open court. I consider the idea of popping along to see a magistrate at home when one wants an emergency order to be even worse. The figure of £60 million has been quoted—if the magistrates were not queueing up for that work, I would be astonished.

I turn to amendment No. 14 and the matter of the central point of contact. Obviously, much work must be done to make the Bill practical both for business and for us. We want the minimum burden on business, and we made that abundantly clear during our discussions with businesses, and in the amendments that we made to the Bill in the other place. When the Bill receives Royal Assent, there will be the normal three-month consultation on the code of conduct.

We have given undertakings that inquiries will be routed through intelligence units within the 13 administrative areas of the Benefits Agency, plus the national intelligence unit that deals with organised fraud. Therefore, there will be 14 sites. That represents an incredible degree of centralisation in a Government Department. We currently have 600 offices, and we do not envisage the initial authorisation of more than 175 staff.

Different issues apply to local authorities, which have a statutory duty to administer housing benefit and council tax benefit. Some authorities are good, some are excellent and some are appalling. Everybody knows that because we publish the reports of the benefit fraud inspectorate. Local authority investigators are trained to carry out their duties, and we assist with such training.

Our best estimate of the cost of housing benefit fraud is £600 million a year. That is an unacceptable drain on resources. However, there are 409 local authorities and the Government cannot tell them precisely how they should do their job. We expect chief executives to run efficient and tight ships. We have given them access to our internal information through remote access terminals; every local authority has at least one such terminal, although some have more. That makes accessing the information easier. However, local authorities can access information electronically—principally information from credit reference agencies—only following authorisation from the Secretary of State, and a case must be made for such authorisation. There are no blanket authorisations. Nothing has passed over my desk, or the desk of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, about local authorities that are good, bad or indifferent.

In discussions with the Local Government Association, we raised the possibility of local authorities banding together to make such inquiries. That will have to be done in writing because we cannot give commitments on behalf of local authorities. However, we understand from British Telecom that in Gloucester inquiries are centralised through the trading standards department, which means that there is only one department making such inquiries. Therefore, even the council channels through one department. The London team against fraud facilitates the sharing of information and best practice throughout the London boroughs. There is a wide variation in the performance of London boroughs that deal with housing benefit, ranging from good to very bad. All boroughs are trying to raise their game, and we want to facilitate that.

Local authority officers will be bound by the statutory code of practice. It will apply to such officers in the same way that it applies to the Department's officers. Paragraph 4.22 of the code of practice indicates that local authorities should join together to channel inquiries through one department in one of several authorities. That will make the measures in the Bill less of a burden on authorities and business. It would be useful if the authorities considered operating in that way.

I accept that this is an area on which we could spend time. The amendments moved by the hon. Member for Beckenham raise legitimate concerns. Liberty has also raised those issues. I make no criticism of Liberty. It does not have the resources to comment on our original consultation. I told staff to remind representatives from Liberty that we had not heard from them, but they wanted to wait until the Bill was published before commenting. I understand that voluntary sector organisations are strapped for resources.

However, I think that even Liberty would accept that we have made substantial changes. I repeat that there is no intention, and there should be no possibility, of fishing expeditions on individual citizens under the Bill. I cannot be clearer than that. Our client group is confined to benefit claimants. They should not have fewer rights than other citizens, whether they are taxpayers or not, because they can be both at the same time. All that we are asking is that people tell us the truth when making benefit claims. We can make inquiries only if there are reasonable grounds for believing that the truth is not being told. We are severely limited from the outset.

Some of the figures look big because we have 50-odd million claimants. For example, we issue a million order books a week—50 million a year. We pay out £2 billion in benefit every week—£100 billion a year. Huge sums are being paid. One can make the figures look big, but inquiries should not be an onerous cost on business. As taxpayers, businesses have an interest in helping us reduce the scale of benefit fraud.

The figures are huge. That is why I asked the Minister to give us some idea of the scale of the inquiries, which he seems unable to do. I would even appreciate a guesstimate. As I understand it, there will be 175—rising to a possible 300—authorised officers located in the 14 Department of Social Security centres. When we discuss the question of housing benefit and local government officers, the whole problem becomes vastly less clear. We need to know the details of how the proposal will work to make us more confident that there will be no wholesale speculative inquiries on individual citizens. What matters is how the proposal will work in practice. If we are talking about more than 400 local authorities, on what basis will they be authorised by the Secretary of State? Do they have to show some competence? Should they have a single authorised officer? How is it going to work?

Will the Minister explain how the proposal would work with credit card companies? Let us suppose that an inquiry is made to a credit card company. Would the request be made electronically, or would it be an automatic transfer of data on the credit card customer's account? If such an inquiry is made to a credit card company or credit reference agency, is there anything to preclude the company recording the fact that an inquiry has been made on the account? Presumably, a person's credit worthiness could be innocently damaged. It may be thought that because a DSS inspector has inquired into a person's financial affairs, something dodgy must be going on. Those may be details or minutiae of how the proposal works, but they are important.

CSA investigators examining a particular case would have no right to make such inquiries in the CSA, but could ring up their mates in the Benefits Agency and say, ``We are investigating this individual, will you do the credit checks for us, because we think that something is wrong. It might benefit all of us.'' That might be a legitimate thing to do, and we might want to encourage it. However, I would be interested to know further details about how it might work.

I am sorry that I missed the hon. Gentleman's point. The best that I can do is draw his attention to the regulatory impact assessment. Table 3 in paragraph 18 gives an estimate of the number of inquiries made by the DSS and local authorities. As the hon. Gentleman will see, we estimate that there will be just over half a million inquiries from the DSS and about a quarter of a million from local authorities, which will be split between banks, utilities and so on. The grand total is about 800,000. Those are big figures. In the context of what the Government are doing they are small beer, but there is big money involved in fraud.

Inquiries to credit card companies should be in writing. Credit card companies are a different kettle of fish from credit reference agencies. In the main, electronic access will be to credit reference agencies. The company can record the fact of the inquiry made by the DSS, but it must not hold that information for too long, because it is not relevant for its purpose. The DSS footprint will therefore not be available for everyone to see for ever more.

It is not generally known that the private sector in this country has its own organisation—CIFAS, the credit industry fraud avoidance system—to combat fraud. It involves the Metropolitan police. Information is exchanged so that people who make an application to buy a three-piece suite or a car are subject to checks, instantly and overnight, by address, name and date of birth. That is also done in relation to making an insurance claim and taking out insurance. People receive their service, their sofa is delivered, and they think that that is the end of the matter. However, the computerised checks continue under the CIFAS system, and I hope, expect and assume that they conform to the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998.

I tried to explain at a recent banking conference, which I mentioned on Second Reading, that our first port of call in relation to a query might be a credit reference agency, because that could give us an idea of what had been paid by the person concerned. It might give us a clue as to whether there had been a check with a bank, which might be that person's bank. That would allow us to track whether the person had a bank account. We would not send off missives to all the banks. As I tried to explain, if we think that someone has a bank account, and is lying to us, we will not contact 50 banks to ask them whether a certain person has an account with them. It will not be done in that way. If we cannot find out what we want, we shall have to use the evidence available in the best way that we can. We do not intend to be oppressive.

CSA investigators are part of the same set-up. They have their own powers of inquiry and inspection. Inter-departmental powers exist for data matching benefits. People are beginning to learn that, even with our inadequate computers, which are being modernised daily—I must stop calling them rubbish because they are improving—we are data matching on people who are claiming one benefit against another. That is done internally within government, and the CSA is no different in that respect. There have been problems with the CSA since it started. I have heard amazing allegations from constituents about people driving Mercedes estates and jobs on the side dealing in antiques. Nevertheless, the powers of CSA investigators are limited—they cannot go fishing. I make it abundantly clear that it is not a case of meeting a colleague in the pub or having a quick chat on the telephone to ask, ``Could you run a check on this person?'' Investigators must have reasonable grounds, and their inquiries must be recorded, supervised and managed so that if they are misusing their power we can catch them out.

I am grateful to the Minister of State for responding to so many of our points, but unfortunately his responses raise further questions. I shall follow the order in which he responded to our points, as that is how I took my notes.

The comparison that the Minister drew between the Inland Revenue's powers and those of the DSS is precisely the reason why we did not table an amendment to transcribe the relevant section of the Taxes Management Act 1970 into the Bill. We recognise that the Revenue has much wider powers and can require information from third parties. We wanted to ensure that a similar system, or, as semantic arguments are involved about whether ``similar'' means ``the same'', a system that would produce the same effect as that operated by the Inland Revenue in respect of an independent check on inquiries, was passported into the Bill.

The Minister drew an interesting but slightly unfair comparison with Inland Revenue commissioners. Inland Revenue investigators must secure agreement from those independent commissioners, who number about 3,000. The commissioners cannot participate in subsequent inquiries, which ensures that they remain independent. The most obvious parallel with those commissioners are magistrates.

To frighten the horses, the Minister suggested that all requests for action would have to be made by magistrates in open court. As he suggested, magistrates often do not have to give such orders in open court. In the same spirit as the Government allow Inland Revenue commissioners to give permission, we suggest using magistrates, as we believe that independent scrutiny is necessary.

The decision is entirely up to the Minister, and if I were in his position I should do exactly the same as him and put the worst possible case. We, necessarily, put the best possible case—that magistrates do not need to act in open court.

The Minister has said that the Bill does not allow fishing expeditions. Anxiety about fishing expeditions led us to table the amendments on magistrates, court orders and the code of practice. We believe that in some cases fishing expeditions will still be possible and have tabled amendments to tease out why he believes that fishing expeditions will be precluded. We tabled the amendments not merely because fishing expeditions might be possible but because we believed that the system should include independent scrutiny.

The Minister rightly defended the probity of DSS staff and people in local authorities who are involved in fraud investigation. I hope that he does not believe that we are casting aspersions on the bulk of the staff, but according to his own figures, 18 staff were prosecuted, three were downgraded, and 21 resigned, which is 42 staff out of, I believe, 5,000 benefit investigators.

No. The Benefits Agency employs 80,000 people. The figures to which the hon. Lady refers are general figures for members of staff who have done things wrong under the legislation. They cannot be classified as part of the figure of 5,000.

I am grateful for the Minister's clarification. I am pleased that the management checks pick up anyone who in any way, shape or form is acting illegally. I am not suggesting that the 300 authorised officers would act illegally, but given the management checks, it worried me that it was necessary to take action against 42 people in the Benefits Agency in the past year because they were behaving outside the bounds of their legal responsibilities. We are not casting the aspersion that the Department of Social Security or the Benefits Agency do not supervise their staff.

The Benefits Agency is in receipt of bogus calls from debt collectors and other agencies in the private sector that are trying to find out information about our benefits plans. Prosecutions are pending in respect of that. None of the bogus calls have come from inside the Benefits Agency. They were all from the private sector. Probity is at risk. We have to take a tough line. It is not all one way.

I am delighted to know that the Department of Social Security and the Benefits Agency take a tough line. None of us would condone any illegal action or transgression of an individual's right to privacy. I am not sure how relevant that is to our call for an independent check, but I am pleased that the two establishments act in that way.

I want to put it on the record that we are talking about the principle of independent scrutiny. My hon. Friend the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) referred to the detail of the provisions. I shall be grateful if the Minister will explain how he plans to keep companies informed of staff changes. It could be routine, but we all know that internal telephone directories are always changing. For example, the House of Commons has an efficient system; each three or four months we receive a new telephone directory, but it is still tempting to hang on to an old one. We then suddenly find that the names are wrong. It is a matter of crucial detail. Companies should be assured that there will be a robust system by which they can be kept updated. I am sure that they will have the best method of ensuring that the information that they receive from the Department of Social Security is up to date. There is much worry about such matters.

The right hon. Gentleman said that, under the amendment, the code of practice would take precedent over the Act. If he is intrigued by the idea of the code of practice, we should be delighted if he took away the amendment and drafted it in such a way that it satisfied him. A check should be made that the inquiries by the authorised officers are as independent as possible.

The Minister went on to talk about the misuse of powers by officials and said that people could be sent to prison for five years, which probably would act as an effective deterrent to such behaviour. He argued that, because there were various management checks and deterrents, there was no point in independent scrutiny and that it would cost £120 million to obtain court orders. It was estimated that 120,000 court orders would be needed to deal with inquiries. I think that the right hon. Gentleman referred to £60 million in respect of magistrates. I am not sure whether he meant that it would cost £60 million for magistrates to sit in court or that that would be the cost of private sessions.

The Minister then referred briefly to amendment No. 5 on electronic records, which are indeed quick and accessible. Obtaining a court order would slow down the process. I do not wish to be out of order, but the Benefits Agency is putting together an inquiry about potential benefit fraud. Given the nature of the bureaucracy involved, the mere fact that inquiries can be conducted electronically overnight, as is the case under CIFAS, will not have a material effect on the case against the benefit fraudster. Thus, the argument about the delay that would be caused if a court order or a magistrates order to sit in private were sought—heavens above, no one wants to make our courts process any slower than it is—is an argument for argument's sake as opposed to a proposal that is well thought through.

Naturally, we want the case against a fraudster to be put together efficiently, effectively and as quickly as possible, but I doubt that the other inquiries that would need to be made to put together a case that would stand up or to persuade a benefit fraudster to withdraw his claim would be affected by a delay of 24 hours to obtain a court order rather than the simple overnight gathering of electronic information. An enormous amount of paper would have to be put together, whether or not the searches were done by computer, to confront the fraudster with the case against him or to make a case that the CPS would recognise. I think that the CPS still uses the criterion of a 50 per cent. chance of success.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham referred to the number of inquiries. On Second Reading, I think that the hon. Member for Northavon said that 800,000 inquiries would have to be made. That is a small point, but paragraph 19 of the regulatory impact assessment refers to 900,000 inquiries. The figure of 800,000 is large, but 900,000 is even larger. I do not want to split hairs, but we need to put the matter on a proper basis. The number of inquiries set out in the draft code of practice and in the regulatory impact assessment are 594,000 and 287,000, which add up to 881,000.

The hon. Lady is using the regulatory impact assessment that was in place when the Bill was introduced in another place. Aspects of the Bill have changed since then. I am using the regulatory impact assessment in respect of the Bill that is being discussed in the House of Commons, and the number of inquiries totals 784,000.

I am delighted to hear that. I am sorry, I was using the House of Lords code of practice draft, too. It shows that we work closely with our friends in the other place. I should be fascinated to know why the figure has fallen.

The right hon. Gentleman brought his remarks to a close on the single point of contact. I was interested in what he said about reducing the gateways—I think that that is the best description—so that the origin of the inquiries is clear. I was pleased to hear what he said about negotiations with the local authorities and the Local Government Association. After the Minister has responded to the substantive points that I made, the way forward will be to withdraw the amendment in order to think about those responses.

I shall be brief. To reiterate a point that I have already made, the powers to obtain information from persons who fall within proposed new subsection 2A(a) to (n) are restrictive and not on the scale of those used by the Inland Revenue, which can demand access to solicitors and accountants. The power in the Bill is very restricted.

We are still in discussion with industry on updating the list of staff—I want that to be clear. Nothing is set in concrete and we need flexibility because we genuinely want to take on board industry's concerns. We want a system that works to the best advantage of both partners in the attack on fraud. Our intention is to ensure that representatives in the businesses that we deal with always have the name and telephone number of a senior officer, so that if there is any doubt in their minds about the inquiries made to their organisation, they can approach that senior officer directly. We are still discussing that with the business community.

I do not think that it is our intention to publish to the wider world the list of authorised officers. I do not know quite what our intentions are at present, but I do not think that there will be a public notice outside the 14 units saying, ``These are the authorised officers'', or that we will post their names and work addresses on the internet. However, there will be named officers at the 14 points. When they change, we will issue new names, but we will ensure that businesses always have access to a senior officer with whom to check any doubts about inquiries. We are often approached with bogus inquiries, and it is difficult to know whether it is a genuine inquiry from another part of Government or someone in the private sector trying to discover information to which they are not entitled.

I would hate it to be recorded that the Oppn were recommending publication of the names of investigating officers. I am concerned purely about the relationship between the companies and the DSS.

We are dealing with lots of companies, so I am not sure how the 175 divided by 14 will be disseminated. I cannot be precise about the issue because we are still in discussion with businesses about how far we can go in sharing information—whether it is legitimate for us to do that to help business. We are not members of CIFAS, so there cannot be reciprocity.

We currently prosecute and sanction 400 people a week, or 20,000 a year. Those cases must be put together and they must be legitimate, which involves a lot of paperwork and administration. The sanction is not a rap over the knuckles, as we have made clear—it is repayment of the fiddled benefit plus 30 per cent. Where offenders are bang to rights, we sanction them. If the offender does not like the sanction, we prosecute, and we must be ready to do that. An enormous amount of work is involved. I am not saying that we do not want to have to go to court because it will delay us and we want electronic access by the hour and the minute, although the fact is that it would slow us down. We do not believe that there are grounds for third-party supervision of our staff at the level at which they work, simply because checks and balances already exist.

I assure the hon. Member for Beckenham and the Committee that we shall review all the powers and their operation after three years. We are already on record as saying that we will do that. If changes are required in the light of experience, they will be made. It is not a question of saying, ``This is what we are going to do, and off we go.'' These are innovative powers for the Department, which are tightly controlled and intended to provide the bare bones. Their use will be restricted to the cases of a group of people whom we think are not telling the truth when they make a claim for benefit.

I am grateful to the Minister for those answers. I am glad to hear that he and the Department are in discussion with the companies concerned. It will be useful to update ourselves on progress by having a debate on Report, at which point I may return to the amendment. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move amendment No. 17, in page 2, line 25, after ``information'', insert

``directly relevant to the claim being investigated''.

With this it will be convenient to take amendment No. 18, in page 2, line 35, at end insert—

``.—( ) It shall not be legitimate to make a person the subject of an inquiry under this section on the basis of a spot check or any automated form of selection.''

We referred in the previous debate to fishing expeditions. The amendments relate to the fact that this part of the Bill contains the potential for an inquiry to go wider than is required by its terms of reference.

Information gathered by investigating officers should be directly relevant to the case that they are attempting to prove. As I understand it, the Bill does not define the information that investigators are allowed to request. The draft code of practice envisages that information requested from a bank will be provided in the form of bank statements. However, Liberty has pointed out that such statements would provide more information than necessary. For instance, in an investigation of someone who is believed to be working while claiming benefit, an investigator would look for evidence of wages paid into a person's bank or building society account. It would not be appropriate to request all the information about the bank account. The investigator should specify, for instance, that he requires information about sums that could be regarded as wages. Although there is a national minimum wage, I suspect that someone who is working while claiming benefit will not necessarily have recourse to the law on the national minimum wage. However, it may be possible to calculate a day's national minimum wage income, which would be a reasonable sum to request information about, rather than the odd tenner here and there. The question is whether the investigator should have sight of the complete bank statement or only of sums that are directly relevant to the claim being investigated.

Amendment No. 18 would outlaw an inquiry under the powers to obtain information powers that was undertaken on the basis of a spot check or automated form of selection. The Bill states that the investigating officer must have reasonable grounds before seeking to use such powers. The amendment would place safeguards within the Bill rather than merely in the code or practice, as it is felt that some of the provisions in the Bill do not protect the interests of benefit claimants. Although I do not want to deal with the issue of the Information Commissioner, at one stage she believed that there was too much investment in the code of practice.

On Second Reading, the Secretary of State and the Minister said that the Information Commissioner was satisfied with the Bill. In the brief time available to me, I said that I hoped that the Minister would explain to the Committee why the commissioner was satisfied with the Bill, having been dissatisfied previously, rather than making the bald statement that she was satisfied. I hope that at some point he will do so, perhaps when we reach clause 3.

The Information Commissioner was unhappy with this part of the Bill. We want the Bill to require that information be specifically related to the purpose of the inquiry. It should not be possible for investigating officers to obtain information that goes wider than that which they require. If the Minister can assure me that we are misinterpreting this part of the Bill and can explain why, I am sure that we shall be satisfied, but we remain worried that the information required could be too broad.

I wish to speak briefly in support of amendment No. 17. To pre-empt the Minister's response, I assume that the answer will be that of course we shall only ask for information that is directly relevant, and that it is in the code of practice that we would do so. I accept his point that we cannot make the code of practice superior to the statute. However, given that we could include in the Bill something that is so central to what we would want in the code of practice by adding just a few words, and that it would provide the required further check and balance, I hope that the Minister will regard the amendment as in the spirit of the code of practice and will be willing to add those words. Doing so would cost the Government nothing. If the amendment is in the spirit of what is intended anyway, why not add the proposed words?

The hon. Member for Beckenham tabled the two amendments because she is worried about the potential for ``fishing'', as it has universally come to be known in our debates. Before I speak to the amendments in detail, I reiterate our view that there are no grounds or desire in the Bill to go fishing for information. The powers that the Bill grants do not allow our fraud investigators to fish in any way.

I refer Opposition Members to the relevant part of the Bill, proposed new subsection (2C), which encompasses what an authorised officer should be able to do in exercising his or her powers, and includes the phrase ``reasonable grounds''. It refers to requiring

``information from any person by virtue of his falling within subsection (2A) above unless it appears to that officer that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the identified person to whom it relates is—

(a) a person who has committed, is committing or intends to commit a benefit offence; or

(b) a person who (within the meaning of Part 7 of the Contributions and Benefits Act) is a member of the family of a person falling within paragraph (a) above.''

The provision is deliberately tightly drawn to prevent ``fishing''. In considering what is relevant and reasonable, my right hon. Friend the Minister has spent a lot of time giving assurances in response to detailed questions about the previous group of amendments on how the powers will be used and how they do not allow for general fishing expeditions.

Amendments Nos. 17 and 18 are unnecessary. The Bill and existing legislation already provide sufficient safeguards to ensure that only information that is relevant and reasonable can be requested. Proposed new subsection (2C) provides that authorised officers may not make inquiries about a person unless it appears to them that reasonable grounds exist for suspecting that a benefit offence is either occurring or will soon be occurring.

The measures are to be included in existing legislation, and provide that authorised officers may obtain information only when it is reasonable for their purposes—so it must be relevant to the inquiry about the benefit offence. If authorised officers do not think that a piece of information is relevant, they may not ask for it. If we received irrelevant information, under the Data Protection Act 1998 we would be obliged to destroy it as soon as possible. I hope that, taken together, those two pieces of legislation provide reassurance.

Amendment No. 18 would prevent us from making inquiries about people selected

``on the basis of a spot check or any automated form of selection.''

The amendment is unnecessary because the provisions that I have just outlined provide a protection against automated selection or spot checks. An authorised officer must also have ``reasonable grounds for believing'' under proposed new subsection (2C). That does not include the capacity to make spot checks or to instigate any automated form of selection that will randomly throw up people who would not come under that subsection. The amendment offers reassurances that are already in the Bill.

The amendment would have some unfortunate effects because it would prevent us from making inquiries except in the cases in which proposed new subsection (2C) applies. Any other suspicions of fraud would arise from evidence such as tip-offs, faulty identity documents, suspicious behaviour and so on. None of that is automated; we do not have automated tip-off mechanisms. The fraud hotline produces most of our tip-offs.

Proposed new subsection (2C) states that we need reasonable grounds for making inquiries, but reasonable grounds do not include random checks or spot checks. If the hon. Member for Beckenham wants that to be put on the record, I am more than happy to do so. Random checks or spot checks are not included in the definitions in proposed new subsection (2C). Our decisions must be based on objective evidence, which means that there must be reasonable grounds—that is, a well-founded belief that benefit fraud is occurring or about to occur.

I hope that those assurances will be taken in the spirit intended. We do not believe that there are any spaces or holes in the drafting of proposed new subsection (2C) that will allow for the trawling or fishing about which hon. Members have expressed concern. I hope that the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Northavon will take those assurances at face value, because they are the strongest that I can give.

My concern is not so much general trawling and fishing. Although I lead a fairly respectable life, I would not want my bank account to be available to the Benefits Agency, and I am sure that most people would feel the same. They would not like their credit card account, for example, to be made available to the Benefits Agency.

Agreeing amendment No. 17 would mean that only information that was directly related to the investigation could be required. I do not know about other people's bank accounts, but I am happy to share with the Committee that my bank account specifies my mortgage, my life assurance and my direct debits. It gives a life-style analysis to people who wish to examine such things. Our concern is that the matter is broader than checking whether there is illicit income that has not been declared. I assure hon. Members that there is nothing in my bank account that indicates that I have not registered something in the Register of Members' Interests. The amendment raises a worry about scale rather than about a more general trawling or fishing expedition.

I hope that I can reassure the hon. Lady again. As my right hon. Friend the Minister said when discussing the previous group of amendments, the person investigated must be a benefit claimant who is covered by proposed new subsection (2C). That states that an authorised officer must have,

``reasonable grounds for believing that the identified person'' to whom the inquiry relates has,

``committed, is committing or intends to commit'' a benefit fraud.

The purpose of the Bill is twofold. First, we want to deter people from committing benefit fraud. We will send people the message, on leaflets and claim forms, that any information that is given in a benefit claim may be checked by a third party to ensure that the truth has been told. The message will be, ``Don't lie to us''.

The other purpose of the Bill is to make for more effective detection of fraud that has been committed. People who lie on a benefit application form, perhaps by stating that they do not have a bank account, should know that they are taking a serious risk, because the new powers will allow us to discover that they do have a bank account. We will not want further information when we have discovered the facts that are required to prove a fraud. As I said, it would be illegal for us to collect all sorts of information for the hell of it.

We require only one piece of information to confirm that a benefit claimant has given false or inadequate information that affects their benefit claim. In such circumstances, powers are limited and access to information that we have is narrowly drawn. Authorised officers will have legal obligations under other laws on the statute book, particularly the Data Protection Act, which mentions information that is superfluous to need. If we acquire such information, we do not have the right to keep it, and it must be destroyed.

I will be happy to withdraw the amendment on the basis of those reassurances. However, will the Minister reassure me about information from the Information Commissioner?

We are considering that matter, and my right hon. Friend the Minister will shortly write to the hon. Lady about it.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move amendment No. 21, in page 2, line 31, leave out `or intends to commit'.

The Committee has spent much of today on a fishing expedition and this amendment relates to a similar subject. Clause 1 caused considerable concern in the other place, and the Government redrafted it. That satisfied most critics that the matter was being dealt with in a better way. However, there is a residue of worry about the wording of the clause, especially in proposed new subsection (2C)(a), which states:

``or intends to commit a benefit offence''.

That gives authorised officers the opportunity to go on the famous fishing expeditions. Will the Minister explain a little more fully to the Committee the powers that officers will have to investigate on spec an intention to commit a benefit fraud? Will there have to be a particular concrete suspicion to enable them to do so?

Line 31 refers to ``or intends to commit'' and deals also with a person ``who has committed''. That implies that, when someone has committed an offence, the power will apply permanently. In other words, the clause gives the power permanently to investigate banks accounts, and so on, of people because they once committed such an offence. It would be helpful if the Minister clarified the provision. Does it give officers a blank cheque? When someone has committed an offence, that is a matter of fact; presumably, the hurdle of reasonable grounds would be overcome automatically. So, is one's bank statement an open book once one does something wrong—would the fact that a person had committed an offence be sufficient evidence that he may intend to do so again?

The hon. Member for Hexham asked for an explanation of the current powers. He is absolutely right that that matter caused anxiety in the other place. The amendment would remove the ``intends to commit'' provision from the clause. That would make us purely reactive in the way in which we could try to combat benefit fraud, rather than adding an extra category of people who we believe are likely to commit or who are in the process of setting themselves up to commit a benefit fraud.

The change of wording in the other place from ``likely to commit'' to ``intends to commit'' was an attempt to tighten up the provision and to leave no opportunity for ``fishing'' or unwarranted discrimination against particular benefit claimants. The Committee must remember that there must in all instances remain reasonable grounds for suspecting that the person is intending to commit benefit fraud, and that is dealt with under proposed new subsection (2C).

An obvious example will illustrate what is in our minds. Let us suppose that a person has multiple national insurance numbers and multiple identities—that does happen—but had not yet activated such numbers in order to receive benefit. Why on earth would a person have a series of national insurance numbers and different identities? It is reasonable to believe that such an individual was about to access them to claim benefit. If the ``intends to commit'' provision were removed, we would not be provided with the ability to take action to prevent such people from committing the fraud in the first place. We hope that the Committee will realise that the proactivity allowed under the clause will be beneficial in stopping fraud.

In answer to the hon. Member for Northavon, there are grounds for believing that those who have committed fraud in the past are likely to do so in the future. We regard them as a risk. Clearly, we are anxious with the new powers in the Bill to communicate to such people that we are beefing up our powers in order to catch them and that, in the long term, it will not be in their interests to continue stealing from the benefit system. We hope that such powers will begin to persuade people that such action is not acceptable and that they will be taking much greater risks with their own personal liberty if they pursue it.

The hon. Gentleman should read the two lines previous to line 31: an officer must have ``reasonable grounds for believing'' that the person has committed fraud and is about to commit fraud again. Therefore, the fact that a person has previously committed fraud would not qualify as reasonable grounds for suspecting that he or she is about to commit fraud again. If an authorised officer was dealing with a case in which a claimant had previously committed fraud, he could not make inquiries unless he had reasonable grounds to believe that fraud was about to be committed. That principle must be applied on a case-by-case basis, because it is not possible to specify every individual circumstance in which an authorised officer might reasonably hold that belief.

I apologise if I am misreading the proposal, but I do not think that that is what it says. It states that an authorised officer cannot make inquiries unless he has reasonable grounds for believing that a person

``has committed, is committing or intends to commit'' a fraud. Once a person has a record for having committed a certain crime, he or she is, by definition,

``a person who has committed'' such a crime. It is not necessary to have ``reasonable grounds'' to believe that. It is a fact, and that satisfies the requirements of the provision. The authorities would therefore have carte blanche to investigate such a person's accounts.

The hon. Gentleman is entitled to his opinion, but I have been informed that authorised officers must have reasonable grounds to believe that a fraud is about to be committed.

That is not what the provision says.

The hon. Gentleman can hold whatever views he likes, but that is the interpretation of the legislation that I have been given, and I will pass it on to him.

As the Minister surmised, this is a probing amendment, because there was a residue of concern that the Bill's wording might allow for the alternative interpretation that has been described. However, the Minister's reassurance will be recorded, and those who are interested in the matter outside Westminster will be able to examine her explanation. Therefore, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move amendment No. 42, in page 4, line 19, after `benefit', insert

`, child tax credit or Working Families Tax Credit'.

As a couple of members of the Committee sat through debates on the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill, I will not describe the details of the working families tax credit. However, hon. Members will know that the working families tax credit and the children's tax credit are benefits—in effect, if not in their technicalities. Currently, provisions on the working families tax credit and the children's tax credit are covered in tax credits legislation, as part of the Taxes Management Act 1970, which we have refrained from translating into the Bill. That Act states that the people who investigate fraud in WFTC and CTC must be of higher executive officer level, whereas the Bill states that the authorised investigator must be of executive officer level.

I do not wish to discuss that matter, as I hope that it will be addressed in the code of practice. However, the amendment is intended to make the Department of Social Security and the Benefits Agency responsible for fraud investigations concerning the working families tax credit and children's tax credit, and I would like the investigators to be of higher executive officer level. The amendment aims to achieve that because the working families tax credit and the children's tax credit are part of the benefits system.

Other countries abandoned such tax credits because of the levels of fraud associated with them. I would be interested in the Minister's comments about whether fraud is beginning to emerge in WFTC and CTC—we understand that it is. Such fraud should be covered under this Bill—and, as subsequent amendments would allow, dealt with at HEO level, in line with the Taxes Management Act. The amendment is a probing one.

I know that we have preached joined-up government in the past four years, but that does not mean that we are all in one big block. There are different Departments. The DSS administers the social security system and the Treasury and its agents—the non-ministerial departments of Customs and Excise and Inland Revenue—administer the tax system. There is no doubt that WFTC is part of the tax system, not social security, which is why it is not part of the Bill.

I accept that there is a read-across. I assume that a person can claim WFTC and receive housing benefit, child benefit and other such benefits. The Inland Revenue has powers to gather information and investigate cases of suspected WFTC fraud, including obtaining information from third parties—not anybody but certain third parties—through the tax credit regulations. The amendment is simply not necessary. A system in the Inland Revenue already deals with the problem and there have been prosecutions.

The WFTC is a new tax credit. There is obviously a change on the part of the Government in ensuring that it pays to work; to that extent, the WFTC is a great success. We must watch out for where fraud gets into the system, but the issue is being dealt with by the Inland Revenue and is not a matter for the DSS. On two occasions, the hon. Lady referred to the level and civil service grade of the staff, but that is a matter for another amendment.

The Government take welfare fraud in its widest sense extremely seriously. However, individual Departments are responsible for the legislation and either paying the benefit or the tax credit. The money comes from their budgets, so it is best left for them to deal with the legislation. We do discuss matters across Whitehall. The DSS is represented on the interministerial group on welfare fraud—indeed, I chair the meetings—as is the Treasury. Ministers and officials across Whitehall discuss anti-fraud measures. We recently beefed up our game with two new members of staff and a re-organisation involving a head of investigations and a head of intelligence who play an active role across Whitehall, but the Inland Revenue must be left to deal with the WFTC.

I am grateful to the Minister for that explanation. He said that there have been prosecutions in cases of WFTC and CTC fraud. The detail is obviously a matter for the Treasury, which I hope will be forthcoming from parliamentary questions.

I asked myself such a question this morning. I would not want the hon. Lady to go away, ask a parliamentary question, get a written answer and think, ``What a Minister, he did not even tell me that''. I understand that there have been two successful prosecutions—one involving an employer and one a claimant. Others are pending. It is a new tax system. She can, of course, follow the matter up in Treasury questions.

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I was not impugning that he had not done his research.

The hon. Lady would have done so later.

That is a most ungenerous and uncharacteristic comment from the right hon. Gentleman. I was going to say that, based on the answers from the Treasury, we may or may not seek to return to the subject. However, at this stage, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

I do not want to go over the same ground, and you would not allow me to do so, Mr. Maxton, but I want to draw the threads together and briefly pick up two points about the powers under the clause.

The amendments that we tabled related to our concern about independent scrutiny. I am not convinced that the Minister's responses have satisfied us on that point. He said that there are a lot of internal checks, which we do not doubt. He said that there is good training, which we do not doubt. However, he has also admitted that there are rotten apples in the barrel. I could not help thinking that Nick Leeson was probably subject to internal checks, yet he managed to run up billions of pounds of debts.

He did not work for the DSS.

Had he worked for the DSS, I suspect that he would have done the same. It is not sufficient reassurance to be told that the Department does its own checks and that we should not worry. The powers under the clause are not subject to enough independent scrutiny.

My second substantive concern, which arose during our discussions this morning, is that the clause allows a person to be treated as guilty until proven innocent if he has undertaken one act of benefit fraud, has been found guilty and has paid the fine or other penalty. The Bill makes that perfectly clear, and I cannot understand why the Minister seeks to argue to the contrary. The clause contains no further check whereby someone who has previously committed an offence cannot have their bank accounts trawled through. The lack of independent scrutiny and the freedom to trawl through the accounts of someone who has once committed an offence mean that I am not happy for the clause to stand part of the Bill.

I would like the hon. Gentleman to leave the Committee more satisfied than he is. The Bill has not appeared out of the blue. I draw his attention to the report published just over a year ago by Lord Grabiner on the informal economy. I have mentioned the scale of what the Department pays out each week. The amount of fraud is arguable, but we know that there is at least £2 billion. We are not prepared to put up with that. The taxpayers are being defrauded—including low-paid tax-paying workers and small businesses that are struggling to make ends meet. We have a duty to make sure that, in so far as is possible, fraud is eradicated from the system.

We have tried our best to pare the powers in the Bill to the bone. I freely admit that the drafts of the Bill and ideas that we were considering a year ago were much wider. We were not prepared, as Ministers, to defend some of the more extensive powers that we considered with our advisers. We are therefore convinced that the powers in the Bill are justified, and we are prepared to defend them robustly. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has made it clear that we do not intend that there will be fishing expeditions against individual citizens. If such expeditions take place, we shall come down on those responsible like a tonne of bricks, because that is not provided for in the Bill. It is to the credit of the Department that we sort out the bad apples rather than trying to cover things up. However, the extra powers are needed.

This Bill is part of the price that the country pays for not having an identity card system. We are virtually unique in western Europe in not having such a system. Other countries do not need this kind of legislation because they can carry out identity checks.

I should like the hon. Member for Northavon to be more content than he is about the issue in proposed new subsection 2C. We have taken the advice of our officials in relation to a person who has committed a benefit offence. Risk analysis is undertaken so that we do not waste the time of our staff. We know that certain people who claim a benefit are more likely to commit a benefit fraud during a particular period than others. Risk analysis allows us to find out when fraud pops up in relation to certain benefits. Some of those frauds are related to a time scale, which allows us to target them. However, if someone has committed an offence, that is no reason for ruling him out, but it must appear to the officer at the time that there are reasonable grounds to investigate. To approach the selected third parties, we must consider the thrust of the powers under the clause. In response to the hon. Member for Northavon, I should say that the power is an investigatory power. People undertaking the checks will not be those who decide whether benefit is paid. That is a different issue. It is not exactly Chinese walls, but there are different staff and rules in the Department for such decisions.

The power relates to section 109B of the Social Security Administration Act 1992. The officer must be investigating an alleged current offence, such as an allegation—whether or not anonymous—or a complaint from someone on the fraud hotline. There must be a reason for the investigation to begin. There must not be a fishing expedition. An investigation cannot take place because someone has a badge on his head, which says, ``I was once done for fraud''. There must be a current alleged offence. The official must then have reasonable grounds for believing that the new offence has been committed. I am confident that the Bill cannot be understood to provide a permanent power simply because someone has committed an offence, as a result of which his accounts will be inquired into ever more. That is not our intention.

The court would usually construe ``has committed'' in the light of the purpose for which the power is given. The power is given to investigate. The courts would take a harsh view if we operated that power in the way outlined by the hon. Member for Northavon. The court would apply the power to the offence under investigation. To be honest, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and I were not entirely satisfied with the way in which the hon. Gentleman asked the question and referred to the commas. We must consider the clause as a whole, taking into account how it will fit into the 1992 legislation.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.