Woman forced to repay £1,600 to DWP says bank account checks 'are cruel'

A woman who was forced to repay £1,600 to the Department for Work and Pensions says proposed bank account checks and snooping powers are "cruel". Elizabeth Tait, an unpaid carer for her son Oliver, 20, who has Down's syndrome, was told she owed money to the DWP after she accidentally breached the earnings limit for Carer’s Allowance,

The 59-year-old looks after her son and works part-time as a supply teacher. Ms Tait spoke to iNews and said: "I think disabled people should be exempt from this because the assessment process to make claims is already so robust. To snoop on disabled people would be cruel."

It comes after the DWP last week announced a new review into Carer's Allowance overpayments following a series of reports into some people being left owing thousands of pounds - and sometimes even with a criminal record for benefit fraud.

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Katy Styles, an unpaid carer to her husband Mark, who has motor neurone disease (MND), said: “I’m hoping this is a crackdown on organised fraud, as opposed to penalising vulnerable individuals." The 55-year-old from Cambridge, who started the We Care campaign group, told i: “But I’m concerned about how robust protections to protect individual carers and disabled people might be

“Considering the Government has struggled to keep its own house in order, considering they couldn’t sort out [carer’s allowance] overpayments and allowed those to rack up, it’s concerning. I’m worried about unintended consequences.”

Last month the DWP said the planned legislation would not mean the Government had access to people’s bank accounts. But it said it would “allow DWP to recover debts from individuals” and require banks “to share data that may show indications of potential benefit overpayments”.

The Government claims fraud and error in the welfare system costs the taxpayer almost £10bn a year.