Starmer faces Labour revolt over plan to raid bank accounts of benefit claimants. Welfare fraud bill would allow funds to be taken from bank accounts and driving licences to be cancelled.
by bottish
Starmer faces Labour revolt over plan to raid bank accounts of benefit claimants. Welfare fraud bill would allow funds to be taken from bank accounts and driving licences to be cancelled.
by bottish
8 comments
>Writing in the Guardian, Duncan-Jordan, who was elected for the first time in 2024, accused Starmer’s government of “resurrecting Tory proposals for mass spying on people who receive state support”.
>He writes that the legislation “would compel banks to carry out financial surveillance of welfare recipients”, adding that “given the volume of accounts involved, this will be completed by an algorithm”.
>“If the software flags a possible overpayment, whether due to fraud or error, the bank will report the individual to the Department for Work and Pensions for further investigation”, Duncan-Jordan writes. “By default, welfare recipients would be treated as suspects, simply because they need support from the state.”
>He adds that the government should learn from the Post Office scandal in which a faulty computer system led to hundreds of people being falsely accused of fraud and error.
Thing is, with the Post Office scandal the courts had to sign off on any attempt to claw back money from the Post staff. Here the DWP will just gobble gobble gobble.
And they’ll take away your license, so you can’t get to work.
I’m assuming this will apply to all fraudsters, including those who scammed the public purse claiming to provide PPE equipment during covid – looking at you Baroness Mone and friends.
Anyone who has survived on social security knows that this is going to result in chaos.
The DWP already stops paying people out of the blue as a result of clerical and computer “errors”.
Next thing we know they’ll be randomly cancelling driving licenses and taking money out of people’s accounts “by mistake”. This is only going to lead to horrific problems and will almost certainly lead to suicides when the DWP decide to accidentally empty the bank account of people who were only holding on by their fingertips anyway…
If that ever gets passed, everyone on benefits would empty their accounts, pay cash for everything they can and, for things that have to be paid electronically, pay just enough cash in to cover it before it’s due. The banks would pitch a fit.
A Tory era law so naturally the red tories want to push it through
I’m sure this won’t end up in a massive scandals.
1. Incorrect drivers licences being cancelled and undelivered letters, leading to people unknowingly driving without a licence.
2. Bank accounts being incorrectly emptied leaving people with no money for weeks.
Great plan, Labour. Its like they took all the really shit tory ideas and decided to do them all at once.
Won’t spend confiscated Russian money to aid Ukraine but will pinch money from people in benefits. What a cunt.
Labour seem to really want to go back to being on the opposition, I guess it is easier for them to pretend they care there.
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