Gill German

I welcome the return of this Bill to the House. I was happy to speak on it on Second Reading, when I welcomed the Government’s crackdown on fraud, because every pound lost to fraudulent claims is a pound that could be spent on the vital public services on which my constituents in Clwyd North rely. It is extremely good to see the recognition of the issue, and the action taken in response to the £7.1 million of fraud and error payments in 2022-23 in Wales alone—that figure is up by £600,000 on the previous year. The fine-tuning of this Bill is important, and that fine-tuning is done through the Government amendments, which speak to the correct application under devolution settlements, policy intent, the application and limitation of part 3, and the consequential amendments proposed to parent Acts. I was glad to be a member of the Public Bill Committee that considered the Bill in more detail, and I throw my weight behind the comments made about how the Bill Committee progressed, and how helpful that was to Committee members. The explanations and expansions by the Ministers served us well and have brought us to where we are today. I spoke on Second Reading about the distinction between intentional fraud and accidental individual error, and I am pleased that Government amendments speak to reservations relating to that, and to proportionality. Crucial safeguards will be strengthened to ensure that no one is pushed into undue financial hardship because of debt recovery. Those safeguards include strict affordability checks on recovery payments, and checks on vulnerabilities.