Given one of the final acts of spite by the Tory government before the election was they made it possible to spy on benefit claimants with zero judicial oversight this development isn’t that surprising unfortunately.
Instead they should be going after rich tax dodgers rather than attacking the vulnerable.
corbynista2029 on
Policies that Tories wanted to implement but Starmer did it first:
> Cut at least £3bn in departmental spendings and 2% in back-office cost
> Cut Winter Fuel Payment
> Criminalise puberty blocker usage indefinitely
> Back Tory’s anti-protest laws in court
> Stop building the new hospitals
> Stop railway upgrade plans
> Crackdown on benefit fraud
> Reduce sickness benefits claimants
Any more that I’m missing?
Ok_Fly_9544 on
I’m sure there’s no way around this that is a different type of fraud…
newnortherner21 on
Much of the benefit fraud I suspect is people with cash in hand jobs or income. So I am not sure it will have much impact.
Low-Educator6026 on
Oh good. Now the government can look (easily) on our banks. Great idea because power never creeps to other things. Labour is really the communist party for the 21st century.
Hey don’t by that we don’t like it. Here have a social credit for driving an election car.
LiteratureLoud3993 on
This would be their first real strike for me..
Cost cutting is one thing, and we all knew there would be significant pain in the short term, but warming over the Tories snoopers charter as a way to monitor benefits claimants is repellent in the extreme.
This just assumes guilt and puts the onus on the recipient to “prove” they are worthy of the benefit.
I’ve said for a long time, that these kinds of measures are the thin end of the wedge, and pave the way forward for directly controlling what people are allowed to spend benefits on – it has little to do with actually tackling fraud, because there are already significant powers to investigate and prosecute those engaged in it.
Tories failed with the Porn pass
Tories had significant success with the NHS app
Now Labour are pushing ahead with active account monitoring of innocent people
The Government want to be on your devices and in your finances and when you look at how they are trialling a fully programmable digital pound, some dots are very easy to connect.
And the only reason for that is more restrictions and control.
TeaBoy24 on
People do not realise there are genuine ways to do a fraud.
And no… Not by signing up for something you would not be able to get.
Eg. Working for a council or within the disabilities grants for adapting properties to suit people’s needs… You encounter many people who are on all sorts of benefits but happen to go on 2/3 holidays a year from Spain, Thailand to Bali…
But then they claim that can’t afford a 5k for adapting their bathroom and claim that via a grant. They get the grant automatically because they are on passported benefits.
This was far more common within council housing than on the dfg side. (On dfg side you had more people who had their parents live with them, driving Bentley’s and being in a house worth 400k or more but because the adaptation is for their parents, their parents can get them. even though they could do the work themselves just fine)
But we can’t say no. The budget is very limited and the waiting period is over 1.5 years.
So it not just frequently claiming A certain benefit as much a compound issue between different benefits and inability of saying no when there are other ways.
DaVirus on
This is how centralised banking is dangerous…
Some have been saying this for years.
But it will only be a problem when the people you care about are affected…
Mammoth-Ad-562 on
Just wait until the legislature allows access to private accounts and mortgage lenders can see what people spend their money on, then adjust their interest rates accordingly.
This country is finished, it’s now embarking on the ‘survival of the fittest’ era. The saddest thing is there are still people who will support it because they are gullible and it’s sold to them in a way that takes advantage of the fact they are more concerned about someone getting something they don’t.
OliLombi on
WTF is the point in voting Labour if they’re just going to out-tory the tories???
caspian_sycamore on
People are renting out council houses in London, there is no mechanism to tackle this, nobody checks who live there etc but now they say they will check bank accounts.
I am not sure if they can tho, the UK just don’t have the workforce to enforce laws and regulations.
PursuitOfMemieness on
Putting aside privacy issue, and the very obvious disdain this shows for people on benefits, I very much suspect the cost of actually intensively investigating and stopping benefit fraud is going to far outstrip potential savings.
Reevar85 on
This is OK as long as HMRC gets access to crack down on the rich as well.
J8YDG9RTT8N2TG74YS7A on
What the hell do the right wing actually want?
They moan that there’s billions being lost in benefits fraud. But the moment the government introduced checks to prevent benefit fraud, they moan that there’s checks for benefits fraud.
TesticleezzNuts on
Ahh yes once again it’s those at the bottom who take the brunt and abuse because they can’t fight back while them at the top get a free ride.
Same old government different Colours.
Porticulus on
I don’t like where this gov is going at all. I can’t put my finger on it, but something feels very scary about them if that makes any sense.
dataplague on
Am i to understand this isn’t quite as invasive as the Tory proposal. Or is it the same? It reads it’s for suspected fraud accounts. Not just banks reporting to deep/ hmrc each month what’s in the account. Or am I mistaken
0xSnib on
“Sorry but you can only spend your poverty pounds in Gov approved supermarkets”
(Who charge 20% more as they have a captive market)
chin_waghing on
The real issue isn’t the benefits fraud going though bank accounts IMO, it’s the people on benefits going on holidays brought in cash and buying bikes etc in cash, or using other peoples cards to buy digitally and giving them cash.
How that cash is usually obtained, 9/10 times its labour work or dealing. I used to know several people like this
This can’t go well no matter what they try to
Edit: if someone would like to explain the downvotes, that would be great
Ponder_wisely on
Why not access the bank accounts of people cheating on their taxes?Sometimes I think England is just well-off people – who ALL cheat on their taxes – frothing at the mouth at a few poor people for cheating on their benefits. Govt estimates are that for every £1 cheated on benefits, £4 pounds are cheated on taxes by the moneyed class.
So why I’m supposed to be up in arms about some skint sod who’s getting an extra £30 a month on his benefits I really don’t know.
According-Annual-586 on
Happy for this to go ahead if we can also have access to Starmer and all other MPs bank accounts statements, and those of their relatives too, so we can see where they’re getting money from and what they’re spending it on
If they want me to pay my taxes, I want to know where they are going
Saltypeon on
If they were serious, they would simplify the system and application process.
The more convoluted it is, the easier it is to exploit loopholes, and you get more internal errors. That’s before you get to the insane overspend for what should be a simple thing.
You could probably save more on staff costs than on fraud by simplifying the whole thing.
Ok_One9519 on
In full support of this. Since my MIL came to this country she has not worked a single day in her life. Always coming up with ailments and sicknesses when she is fully capable of working. Over 20 years of this – and her English is still fucking shit as well because she just mooches around at home and shopping all day. Swanning off all over the place on holidays and dirt cheap rent in her big council house in Wimbledon. She has £££. Time to fuck off and make people like this shake their dirty ass and get a job, even if it’s picking up fox shit in the parks. Cannot be right some of us are slaving away whilst others living lazy lives funded by the taxpayer.
ken-doh on
Good. It makes sense. Far too many people abuse the system.
uufsaeab on
That’s it, I’m finally swapping to Monero for ALL of my needs
No_Contribution_6076 on
We all had a choice. We chose more for the same. It didn’t surprise me.
Jesus stop voting for the same two parties… They benefit from it. They have 0 insensitive to change.
One of them gets money and power when they win. They then do what they want. Then their “rivals” get a turn once they win and end up getting money and power.
They then both blame each other for issues they both are causing. Kicking the can down the road long enough that the dumb fucks forget that their chosen party contributed to whatever issue they are currently facing
And here we are waving our little coloured flags thinking we are making a change.
A vote for the Tories or labour is a wasted vote. You may as well have just bought some lube and gone to town on yourself. Cuts out the middle man. At least you would get something out of that…
ArmadilloLoose6699 on
Aside from this being a blatant attack on personal liberty, it’s not going to work anyway because a) cash-in-hand work by definition means they’re not putting what they earn on the side into their bank account, and b) people on low incomes use cash instead of card to better budget their spending so the information they yield is going to be fairly limited.
Raddish53 on
It doesn’t matter who you vote for, the government still gets in. More than ever they are selling off public funded sections rather than tackle the issues of putting them right. I’m all for foreign investment but the desperate state is allowing takeovers that the informed British would never allow.
Derelict2 on
And my family wonder why I voted for the Green Party….
Instabanous on
TIL they can’t already. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
xPhilip on
Benefit fraud is tiny, this is not the actual end goal of these powers.
mathsSurf on
Okay…so the same type of policies proposed by notorious Conservative Supporter, Mr Tony Blair and his cabel since the more aggressive welfare reform policies (including the Flexible New Deal, 1997-2010).
Lion_From_The_North on
I can think of a number of other crimes that should probably be ahead in the queue for direct from account fines
33 Comments
Given one of the final acts of spite by the Tory government before the election was they made it possible to spy on benefit claimants with zero judicial oversight this development isn’t that surprising unfortunately.
Instead they should be going after rich tax dodgers rather than attacking the vulnerable.
Policies that Tories wanted to implement but Starmer did it first:
> Cut at least £3bn in departmental spendings and 2% in back-office cost
> Cut Winter Fuel Payment
> Criminalise puberty blocker usage indefinitely
> Back Tory’s anti-protest laws in court
> Stop building the new hospitals
> Stop railway upgrade plans
> Crackdown on benefit fraud
> Reduce sickness benefits claimants
Any more that I’m missing?
I’m sure there’s no way around this that is a different type of fraud…
Much of the benefit fraud I suspect is people with cash in hand jobs or income. So I am not sure it will have much impact.
Oh good. Now the government can look (easily) on our banks. Great idea because power never creeps to other things. Labour is really the communist party for the 21st century.
Hey don’t by that we don’t like it. Here have a social credit for driving an election car.
This would be their first real strike for me..
Cost cutting is one thing, and we all knew there would be significant pain in the short term, but warming over the Tories snoopers charter as a way to monitor benefits claimants is repellent in the extreme.
This just assumes guilt and puts the onus on the recipient to “prove” they are worthy of the benefit.
I’ve said for a long time, that these kinds of measures are the thin end of the wedge, and pave the way forward for directly controlling what people are allowed to spend benefits on – it has little to do with actually tackling fraud, because there are already significant powers to investigate and prosecute those engaged in it.
Tories failed with the Porn pass
Tories had significant success with the NHS app
Now Labour are pushing ahead with active account monitoring of innocent people
The Government want to be on your devices and in your finances and when you look at how they are trialling a fully programmable digital pound, some dots are very easy to connect.
And the only reason for that is more restrictions and control.
People do not realise there are genuine ways to do a fraud.
And no… Not by signing up for something you would not be able to get.
Eg. Working for a council or within the disabilities grants for adapting properties to suit people’s needs… You encounter many people who are on all sorts of benefits but happen to go on 2/3 holidays a year from Spain, Thailand to Bali…
But then they claim that can’t afford a 5k for adapting their bathroom and claim that via a grant. They get the grant automatically because they are on passported benefits.
This was far more common within council housing than on the dfg side. (On dfg side you had more people who had their parents live with them, driving Bentley’s and being in a house worth 400k or more but because the adaptation is for their parents, their parents can get them. even though they could do the work themselves just fine)
But we can’t say no. The budget is very limited and the waiting period is over 1.5 years.
So it not just frequently claiming A certain benefit as much a compound issue between different benefits and inability of saying no when there are other ways.
This is how centralised banking is dangerous…
Some have been saying this for years.
But it will only be a problem when the people you care about are affected…
Just wait until the legislature allows access to private accounts and mortgage lenders can see what people spend their money on, then adjust their interest rates accordingly.
This country is finished, it’s now embarking on the ‘survival of the fittest’ era. The saddest thing is there are still people who will support it because they are gullible and it’s sold to them in a way that takes advantage of the fact they are more concerned about someone getting something they don’t.
WTF is the point in voting Labour if they’re just going to out-tory the tories???
People are renting out council houses in London, there is no mechanism to tackle this, nobody checks who live there etc but now they say they will check bank accounts.
I am not sure if they can tho, the UK just don’t have the workforce to enforce laws and regulations.
Putting aside privacy issue, and the very obvious disdain this shows for people on benefits, I very much suspect the cost of actually intensively investigating and stopping benefit fraud is going to far outstrip potential savings.
This is OK as long as HMRC gets access to crack down on the rich as well.
What the hell do the right wing actually want?
They moan that there’s billions being lost in benefits fraud. But the moment the government introduced checks to prevent benefit fraud, they moan that there’s checks for benefits fraud.
Ahh yes once again it’s those at the bottom who take the brunt and abuse because they can’t fight back while them at the top get a free ride.
Same old government different Colours.
I don’t like where this gov is going at all. I can’t put my finger on it, but something feels very scary about them if that makes any sense.
Am i to understand this isn’t quite as invasive as the Tory proposal. Or is it the same? It reads it’s for suspected fraud accounts. Not just banks reporting to deep/ hmrc each month what’s in the account. Or am I mistaken
“Sorry but you can only spend your poverty pounds in Gov approved supermarkets”
(Who charge 20% more as they have a captive market)
The real issue isn’t the benefits fraud going though bank accounts IMO, it’s the people on benefits going on holidays brought in cash and buying bikes etc in cash, or using other peoples cards to buy digitally and giving them cash.
How that cash is usually obtained, 9/10 times its labour work or dealing. I used to know several people like this
This can’t go well no matter what they try to
Edit: if someone would like to explain the downvotes, that would be great
Why not access the bank accounts of people cheating on their taxes?Sometimes I think England is just well-off people – who ALL cheat on their taxes – frothing at the mouth at a few poor people for cheating on their benefits. Govt estimates are that for every £1 cheated on benefits, £4 pounds are cheated on taxes by the moneyed class.
So why I’m supposed to be up in arms about some skint sod who’s getting an extra £30 a month on his benefits I really don’t know.
Happy for this to go ahead if we can also have access to Starmer and all other MPs bank accounts statements, and those of their relatives too, so we can see where they’re getting money from and what they’re spending it on
If they want me to pay my taxes, I want to know where they are going
If they were serious, they would simplify the system and application process.
The more convoluted it is, the easier it is to exploit loopholes, and you get more internal errors. That’s before you get to the insane overspend for what should be a simple thing.
You could probably save more on staff costs than on fraud by simplifying the whole thing.
In full support of this. Since my MIL came to this country she has not worked a single day in her life. Always coming up with ailments and sicknesses when she is fully capable of working. Over 20 years of this – and her English is still fucking shit as well because she just mooches around at home and shopping all day. Swanning off all over the place on holidays and dirt cheap rent in her big council house in Wimbledon. She has £££. Time to fuck off and make people like this shake their dirty ass and get a job, even if it’s picking up fox shit in the parks. Cannot be right some of us are slaving away whilst others living lazy lives funded by the taxpayer.
Good. It makes sense. Far too many people abuse the system.
That’s it, I’m finally swapping to Monero for ALL of my needs
We all had a choice. We chose more for the same. It didn’t surprise me.
Jesus stop voting for the same two parties… They benefit from it. They have 0 insensitive to change.
One of them gets money and power when they win. They then do what they want. Then their “rivals” get a turn once they win and end up getting money and power.
They then both blame each other for issues they both are causing. Kicking the can down the road long enough that the dumb fucks forget that their chosen party contributed to whatever issue they are currently facing
And here we are waving our little coloured flags thinking we are making a change.
A vote for the Tories or labour is a wasted vote. You may as well have just bought some lube and gone to town on yourself. Cuts out the middle man. At least you would get something out of that…
Aside from this being a blatant attack on personal liberty, it’s not going to work anyway because a) cash-in-hand work by definition means they’re not putting what they earn on the side into their bank account, and b) people on low incomes use cash instead of card to better budget their spending so the information they yield is going to be fairly limited.
It doesn’t matter who you vote for, the government still gets in. More than ever they are selling off public funded sections rather than tackle the issues of putting them right. I’m all for foreign investment but the desperate state is allowing takeovers that the informed British would never allow.
And my family wonder why I voted for the Green Party….
TIL they can’t already. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
Benefit fraud is tiny, this is not the actual end goal of these powers.
Okay…so the same type of policies proposed by notorious Conservative Supporter, Mr Tony Blair and his cabel since the more aggressive welfare reform policies (including the Flexible New Deal, 1997-2010).
I can think of a number of other crimes that should probably be ahead in the queue for direct from account fines