DWP will take money from your bank account or wages in major change

A new power handed to the Department for Work and Pensions ( DWP ) will allow it to take money from the bank accounts and pay packets of claimants. The major change will be brought in as part of a crackdown on benefit fraud.

It will also have the power to tell firms such as airlines to hand over information about customers. This will mean that DWP investigators will be able to work out how claimants are spending their money.

UK taxpayers lost £7.3billion to benefit fraud last year. The new powers are designed to help the DWP look into anyone suspected of making false benefit claims.

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writing in The Telegraph, Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall said: "We’re in an absurd situation where DWP’s powers have not been updated for 20 years, meaning fraudsters have new ways of taking public money, and we need to keep pace with them. My team are still, in 2024, sending letters to gather evidence for those suspected of welfare fraud, slowing them down to snail’s pace when they could be shutting down serious fraud cases."

Currently, if the DWP wants to get money back from people who have been overpaid benefits it has to take them to court.But the new powers will let the Government take money directly from wages and bank accounts.

The DWP will also be able to take money from the estates of those who have died. It can already get information from banks, energy companies and employers on claimants.

But the new powers will allow the DWP to force private businesses to give up information. It will mean the DWP will be able to track details such as where and when you have been on holiday through flight and ferry data.

Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, told The Telegraph: "This blank cheque to force private companies to snoop and report on the country’s poorest citizens to the state is intrusive, excessive and will create a culture of fear among millions of people claiming benefits."

The government’s Fraud, Error and Debt Bill is an enhanced version of one created by the previous Government.