The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has announced it will check accounts set up with 15 major UK banks under new snooping powers.
New data published by the Government shows that it will cost £370m to set up the process to check people’s accounts and then a further £30m each year once it is fully up and running in 2032. Around 97 per cent of people claiming benefits have an account with one of the country’s top 15 banks, including HSBC, Barclays, NatWest, Halifax, Santander, Bank of Scotland and TSB.
The DWP, which is responsible for managing Universal Credit, PIP, JSA and ESA, said is focussing its initial efforts on those providers. However it is adamant its new powers will not give investigators direct access to bank accounts as it does not amount to surveillance.
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It has previously been confirmed that its crackdown on banks will require a ‘clear signal’ before a check is triggered. Birmingham Live reports the measures will target areas where fraud and error is highest, such as Universal Credit, according to a spokesperson.
They added: “These changes will not allow DWP direct access to bank accounts, but will require third parties to share data signalling fraud with us so it can be considered further. It will also help identify people who have made a genuine mistake with their claim, preventing them from potential debts.”
Silkie Carlo, director for Big Brother Watch, said in November that people who are disabled, sick, carers or looking for work “should not be treated like criminals by default”. “Such proposals do away with the longstanding democratic principle in Britain that state surveillance should follow suspicion rather than vice versa, and it would be dangerous for everyone if the government reverses this presumption of innocence,” she added.
Labour MP Stephen Timms told the Commons in November 2023 that the new powers, introduced in clause 34 of the DPDI, would give the government the right to inspect the bank account of anyone who claims a state pension.
He said: “It will give the Government the right to look into the bank account of every single one of us at some point during our lives, without suspecting that we have ever done anything wrong, and without telling us that they are doing it.”
