Steve Darling

I thank the Government for the steps taken to improve the Bill since it was debated in Committee. We as Liberal Democrats still have grave concerns about elements of the Bill, but it is in a much better place, and I thank all colleagues for working together collaboratively to drive for improvements. Clearly, fraud is wrong. Some people believe that fraud against large organisations such as supermarkets and the Government is a victimless crime, but if we do not have that money, because it has been fraudulently claimed, we have to apply larger taxes or choose not to spend money on things such as tackling climate change. It is therefore important that it is tackled, but we need to ensure that we have two words guiding us: proportionality and fairness. We as Liberal Democrats still have grave concerns that elements of the Bill are not as proportionate as one would wish. I will focus my remarks on Lords amendment 43. We Liberal Democrats feel that more responsibility should be given to the independent reviewer in relation to proportionality and fairness. We still have concerns about the blanket approach, where mass fishing will effectively occur with the proposals before us. One does not have to look that far back in recent IT history to see where things have gone wrong. I believe it was only last week that child benefit was frozen for 23,500 households across the United Kingdom, because those families left the country and were not accounted for when they returned. That error was made on a computer system, and that affected just a small proportion of those to whom this Bill is set to be applied. The reasonableness of Ministers was debated repeatedly in Committee. I am not questioning the reasonableness of the current Minister, or multiple Ministers who preceded him, but I question what we are seeing on the other side of the Atlantic and the person who has the levers of power in the Oval Office. What may be seen as “reasonable” in politics in the United Kingdom is sadly a distant memory in the United States of America. We must ensure that we guard against that future in the legislation we are putting forward now. On the use of force, the Liberal Democrats are pleased that the Government have taken a step in the right direction in their amendment, although we feel that it could be stronger. We would encourage colleagues to vote against the Government’s proposals, because we strongly support Lords amendment 43.