Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)

My Lords, for this group—the penultimate one in Committee—I thought that it would be helpful to noble Lords if I briefly read out what this amendment aims to do. It seeks to insert a new subsection to Clause 105, which states: “Sections 72, 73 and 74 may not come into force until the Secretary of State has published, and laid before Parliament, a report outlining the specific process through which information will be collected in order to fulfil the obligations made out in Chapter 1, Part 2, and in Schedule 3, and their anticipated costs”. Reading that aloud will allow me to explain the breadth of the amendment and what I am trying to do. In essence, the amendment is an opportunity for us to question the Government on the mechanisms that they will use to recover funds, verify eligibility and work alongside the banks, to apply the provisions that have been set out in the Bill. I suspect that I am joined by several noble Lords across the Room when I say that, while the Bill—and the Minister’s remarks throughout these days in Committee—have helped to highlight the scale and purpose of the powers, we are still somewhat in the dark as to how these will really work in practice. We do not have clarity on how this will work operationally for banks and in the DWP, which is important for us to try to understand how this will work in practice. I accept what the Minister has said on certain occasions—namely, that a test and learn process is ongoing—and I suspect that she will probably say that in response. Many of the concerns that I, my noble friend Lady Finn and many other noble Lords have raised over the past few weeks come out in how these systems are set up. Our discussion can only go so far when speaking about this in abstract; therefore, this amendment invites the Government, both now and ahead of Report, to set out how these provisions will work in practice and how the concerns that we have raised with the Government will be addressed. It may well be that my remarks will spur on a detailed letter from the Minister, to help us all in Committee in this respect. We are still very unclear on how banks will be asked to comply with the provisions set out in the Bill. We have pressed the point numerous times that banks need to be involved in the discussions on costs and the recouping of costs, not only operationally but in relation to opportunity. Many questions remain about how this will work. First, how many notices will banks likely encounter per week, and how often will they be required to provide information to the DWP? Do the Government have an idea of how much the cost will be to banks per person in undertaking this process on behalf of the DWP? What will the EVN actually look like, and in what form will that be communicated? In what format will the banks be required to respond to this. I understand that, on a previous group today, the Minister attempted to answer some of these questions. Anecdotally, I am aware that bank employees tasked with responding to HMRC are faced with millions of lines of data, which they stress is often of very poor quality. No account is taken for those who have died, address lines are often formatted in the wrong fields and personal information is incorrectly entered. Employees at the bank—not those in HMRC—have to trawl through all this information to check whether the person has died, or whether their surname is entered into a box meant for their postcode. This is an arduous task that takes hours to complete and diverts clever and capable employees from furthering the bank’s main objective of making money and contributing to our economy. How these notices are made out, what they demand of banks and how the information is to be communicated in practice are important questions. We need to make sure that we are not imposing further undue costs on to banks. They are, as we have said many times, partners and not tools—they should not be asked to incur an undue cost in the fulfilment of public sector duties. Having a clear breakdown on how this system will work in practical terms, as agreed with the banks, is something that Parliament needs sight of before this Bill becomes law, because only then will we have some clarity on our questions in this matter. Furthermore, we still need clarification about how a consideration for vulnerable people, with disabilities or who are at risk of coercion, will be adequately protected through the process of the exercise of the provisions in the Bill. We have been assured verbally by the Minister that these people will be considered—I accept that—but we have not really been told how. Further reassurances are required. We have proposed—through amendments in my name and in those of my noble friend Lady Finn and other noble Lords, such as those tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer—several practical models for how the Government would take adequate account of these factors when making a decision about pursuing the recovery of funds. Practically, this would require a lot more information to be accessed and reviewed about a person before the decision can be taken. This is an important matter to consider in operational terms, as it would doubtless substantially increase the workload of the DWP in exercising these powers, requiring it to look at a good deal more than just numbers. However, making sure that we incorporate these additional needs and vulnerabilities into the process is vital, as we have said in the past. It is the only way in which we can make sure that we are not doing more harm than good, and that we do not cause further distress to those who should receive our help. On that basis, I hope that the Minister can set out how these considerations will be taken into account in practical terms, and how much additional expense and workloads she considers this would contribute to the DWP. Finally, this is also an appropriate time for me to press the Government again on how the system will work across the banks. It is my understanding that the DWP can access information about the bank account into which the benefit payment is made, but no other. Can the Minister confirm whether that is the case or whether the DWP will also be able to access other accounts held in the same bank in the name of the person in question? As we have stated before, this legal limitation seems to be a serious issue, presenting a potential loophole that could be easily exploited by fraudsters, who could simply move money from one account to another, safe in the knowledge that the Government cannot legally pursue them any further based on legislation that they themselves introduced. Can the Minister also take this opportunity to outline operationally how this issue would be addressed, and whether she is considering changing this part of the Bill to shut down this loophole? Again, she may well prefer to write a letter. The amendment serves as a timely and essential reminder that while the principles behind the Bill may be broadly accepted, its practical application still raises a host of unresolved questions, and we are being asked to sign off on a framework that will place significant new responsibilities on both the department and the UK’s banking sector, without having seen a clear operational blueprint. If the Government are to ask banks to take on a new role in data provision and verification, the Government must also be prepared to offer banks clarity, support and safeguards to prevent undue burden and to ensure accuracy in implementation. Equally, the processes by which vulnerable individuals will be identified and protected must be defined and made transparent. I have given fair warning of some further questions about the letter from the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, which sets out some of the figures on fraud that we asked for. I thank her for the letter and appreciate her sending it before the end of Committee. However, it raises further questions. I do not necessarily expect answers now, but I see that the Minister has a bit of paper in her hand. First, the letter said of the figures: “This estimate was calculated from taking total government spend and income for 2023/24 and deducting spend and income associated with known estimates and out-of-scope items. This revealed that around £560 billion of public spend and income was not subject to any fraud and error measurement in 2023/24”. I raise this because I am confused about why we have £560 billion of public spend and income that is not subject to any fraud and error measurement. Can the Minister please clarify why this is the case? I suspect there is a simple answer. What steps are the Government taking to try to rectify this as soon as possible? It is a very big figure. Does the Minister anticipate that, within that £560 billion figure, there is some fraud or overpayment that we should be aware of? Secondly, I was a little confused about the language used in the letter, which refers to and segregates “capital” and “abroad” overpayments. Can the Minister please clarify what these terms mean? I should probably know, but I do not. Furthermore, can she update the Committee on why “abroad” overpayments for pension credit are so high? To conclude, can the Minister commit to making these operational details clear to the House ahead of Report, so that we can frame our important discussions at that stage on the basis of greater information than we currently have? Of course, that will impact and inform the amendments that we might bring back on Report. Setting out how this will work and how our concerns will be addressed might make life a bit easier for the Minister when she has to join us all again in a few weeks or so—I do not believe we have any dates yet—on Report. It would certainly give us clarity on what the Government envisage in practice for the provisions in this important Bill. I beg to move.