Member

It is precisely in that context, where intrusive powers are exercised against citizens, that the independent reviewer most needs to be both empowered and fully informed. Yet under the Bill, as drafted, the reviewer’s access to information there remains subject to ministerial discretion. We have, therefore, as things stand, a rather odd and unsatisfactory imbalance. The Cabinet Office’s independent reviewer, looking at fraud and error centrally, will be empowered and properly supported; the DWP reviewer overseeing eligibility verification will likewise have strengthened access to information; but when it comes to the part of the Bill that governs the actual use of powers on the ground—entering properties, questioning people, exercising the state’s most coercive functions—the reviewer is left weak, dependent, and potentially easily overruled. If the Government have accepted—as they clearly have, and rightly—that the “may” to “must” change is essential for an independent reviewer to be both effective and legitimate, then the same logic surely apples here.