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Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington): Does the hon. Gentleman accept that one of the reasons, perhaps, for housing benefit fraud is that the Government's fair rents policy in the early 1980s drove up rents and drove people into a system that they did not really want to get into, but, having got into it, they found that they were locked into it, and in many places locked out of employment? Is not housing benefit fraud very much the consequence of Government decisions on housing at free-market prices in the early 1980s?
Mr. Faber: I do not accept that anyone is driven into fraud. It is a conscious decision that someone takes. One of the things that we found in our report is that the vast majority of housing benefit fraud is perpetrated by landlords. Hon. Members on the Opposition Front Bench acknowledged that earlier. It is clearly not something that someone is driven into. It is a conscious decision that someone takes to defraud the taxpayer.
I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was here during my right hon. Friend's speech, but he might have welcomed the proposals that my right hon. Friend made to target certain areas from April and to announce two weeks in advance that squads would be going into those areas. Although I very much hope that no one will think that we are offering an amnesty to those who have, as my right hon. Friend put it, "drifted into fraud", there are some who may have been caught up in fraud. I hope that they will be alerted to that fact and will come off the benefit that they should not be on very quickly indeed.
Mr. Campbell-Savours:
Is not there an argument that if one reduces the number of houses in the public sector and follows a policy of ending public housing building programmes, which we had in the 1960s and 1970s, but which were terminated in the early 1980s, and drives people into the private sector, people would be drawn into the private sector, with high rents, who otherwise would never have gone into that business? If much of the housing benefit fraud is landlord induced, it is only because of the shift to dependence on private sector housing allocation.
Mr. Faber:
I can repeat only what I said in reply to the hon. Gentleman's earlier intervention. If people are being brought into housing benefit fraud, they are still criminals. People who defraud the public purse are still criminals. There is no excuse for housing benefit fraud or organised fraud. I do not suggest for a second that the hon. Gentleman suggested that. Landlords go out with a conscious decision to commit fraud, and one cannot possibly condone it.
I repeat what I said a moment ago. I acknowledge that there are those--I think that this was the purpose of the hon. Gentleman's first intervention--who may have drifted inadvertently into fraud. I do not particularly like that expression, but there are people who may be on the wrong benefit and do not realise that they are. I very much hope that such people will look long and hard at what benefits they should be on and take advantage of the proposals that my right hon. Friend unveiled today, where teams will go into specific areas after publicity has been given, and, I hope, will pull them off benefit.
Mr. Faber:
I shall continue, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind.
My right hon. Friend gave us an assurance today that the figures in the benefit reviews would provide reliable information. I very much welcome that and urge him to continue to collect definitive data on the scale of the problem--data that can be used and acknowledged by everyone as the true figures. I hope that that will put an end to some of the discrepancies that exist between the various data that are available to us.
The second area that the Select Committee is examining is the way in which various agencies fight and contest fraud, and effective liaison and communication between them when dealing with specific cases. That subject was covered in our fifth report last year on the work of the DSS and its agencies. As a Committee, we remain concerned at the possible fragmentation and diminution of scope for joint initiatives between some of the agencies involved, for instance, where several agencies are affected by a single fraudster. There are two different perceptions of how successful it might be.On the one hand, several agencies will provide different opportunities to detect the fraud in each agency. On the other hand, there is often the possibility that agencies will assume that responsibility lies elsewhere and that action is being taken.
Evidence of that was given last year by the Contributions Agency, when it became clear that, in a number of areas, the Benefits Agency was considered to have prime responsibility for detecting fraud. Yet when the Benefits Agency was subsequently examined, the then acting chief executive suggested that the Benefits Agency could act only if it was certain of its source of information. That is especially relevant to the Child Support Agency, which has not been mentioned today, but on which the Committee has spent a great deal of time in the past two or three years.
I think that we have all had surgery experience of someone passing on information that is supposed evidence of fraud within the system, often involving a former partner, husband or wife. We know that such information always needs to be treated with great care. It is often based on malice, and frequently it is not based on fact. There needs to be a mechanism, however, whereby the Benefits Agency can investigate the information fully, which often may be specifically targeted and, therefore, easily and quickly investigated. It seems that too often such information can be ignored. Alternatively, its true value can be underestimated, despite the caveat that I have already entered that it could possibly have been motivated by malice.
I welcome the announcement of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that fraud hotlines will be introduced locally as part of local anti-fraud drives.Too often members of the public complain that it is made difficult for them to pass on information that they believe to be of value.
Last month, the deputy head of the security branch of the Benefits Agency told us that in the previous financial year alone the agency had received over 1 million potential fraud referrals from the public. I think that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said this afternoon that in five pilot schemes with hotlines the outcome has been an £800,000 saving for £20,000-worth of expenditure. I hope that my right hon. Friend might consider extending the system further, if not nationwide. It seems that the money would be well spent if that were to be the rate of return from whistleblowers' hotlines. Obviously, we would not wish to use tabloid language to describe such a system.
I move on to the much debated issue of national insurance numbers. Like the Chairman of the Select Committee on Social Security, I was unable to be part of the Newcastle visit.
Mr. Bradley:
Was the hon. Gentleman sick?
Mr. Faber:
No, I was not sick, unlike the Chairman.I was unable to make the journey on the specific day.
I was grateful to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, the hon. Member for North Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald), for trying to clarify some of the differences between the two approaches to national insurance numbers. The system is still perceived as being extremely confusing. It is very difficult for some people to understand it. I think that it was Mr. Rob Elliot of the fraud investigators' group who said that it was difficult to do justice to national insurance numbers. He believes that they are not a sound base for investigating fraud. There is considerable confusion over the two current systems--the national insurance recording system and the departmental central index. Despite the enlightenment offered by my hon. Friend, there is still confusion over the roles that the two systems play.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has announced that his Department will be pioneering the introduction of a single national computer system. Against the background of the current confusion that I have described, that is especially to be welcomed. Similarly, any steps that the Government can take or are taking to improve the security of national insurance numbers, cleaning both duplicate and redundant records, are much needed. We all look forward to hearing more about such an operation in due course, including especially a system of computer cross-checks and the harmonisation of housing benefit computers throughout local authorities.
There is also the relationship between the Benefits Agency and local authorities. The Select Committee heard conflicting evidence on service level agreements and their effectiveness in ensuring good working relationships. In evidence given last month by representatives of the Benefits Agency, we heard that by and large it encouraged locally based agreements with local authorities, and that those agreements are effective. The vast majority of Benefits Agency district offices are happy with their relationships with local authorities, and they insist that local authorities consider that the system works well from their point of view.
In previous evidence, however, especially from the London boroughs' fraud investigators, we heard that most local relationships work only moderately well and that some do not work at all. When the Committee's report is published, I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the rest of the Government will consider carefully the obvious discrepancy in evidence to which I have referred and seek to reassure some local authorities. We have heard from the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith), who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench, about some of the concerns that authorities may have. I hope that the Government will consider carefully those concerns in terms of the Benefits Agency's role in investigating fraud in individual areas.
Today's welcome announcement that a programme of crackdowns area by area, which will begin in April, will give local authorities in specific areas a crucial role. It will be vital that they work closely with the national Benefits Agency to maximise the programme's impact. I hope that all local authorities will respond to my right hon. Friend's appeal to come together to study a unified computer system for dealing with housing benefit across the board. That would surely go a great way to eradicating housing benefit fraud.
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