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Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 18 June 2025

Debate

Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill

Contribution

My Lords, I shall be brief. When we discussed a previous group on Part 1 that was similar to this, I believe the Minister stated that those using search or other powers would always be accompanied by a police constable, so I suppose I am looking for confirmation that that is the same in this case. If it is, I am curious to know why we really need the powers and why it cannot be left to the police to exercise them. I have one other, more important question. On the powers in Clause 76, under the DWP powers, new subsection (4)(i) refers to “section 117 (reasonable use of force)”. Slightly oddly, I have just discovered that that was not included in the powers for the PFSA, so can the Minister explain why the DWP thinks it needs to be able to use reasonable force when the PFSA did not? I beg to move.

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