Peers derail government plans to hand some DWP staff powers to use force against benefit claimants

Government plans under controversial new legislation to give some Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) staff “morally dubious” powers to use force against benefit claimants have been derailed by peers.

The public authorities (fraud, error and recovery) bill was set to give authorised DWP staff the same powers of search, entry and seizure as the police.

But unlike powers granted to the Public Sector Fraud Authority, the bill was also set to allow these officers to use “reasonable force” against benefit claimants when exercising their new powers.

Until now, one of the bill’s most controversial measures was that it is set to force banks to examine the accounts of claimants of means-tested benefits for potential breaches of benefit eligibility rules and then pass that information to DWP.

But a string of crossbench and opposition peers also raised concerns about the “reasonable force” measure on Tuesday during the bill’s report stage.

The crossbench hereditary peer Lord Vaux told the Lords: “This would make it lawful for a DWP officer – not a police officer, but a civil servant – to enter your home, seize your belongings and forcibly hold you down while doing so.”

He said this would be used against benefit recipients, a part of the population who are more likely to be disabled and are “more vulnerable” than the general population.

He said: “The use of physical force marks a far more serious infringement than the powers of search, entry and seizure alone.”

He was supported by Conservative peer Lord [Mark] Harper, a former minister for disabled people, who urged ministers to “not give power to use reasonable force to people who are not trained to use it and do not have proper oversight”.

The Liberal Democrat peer Lord Palmer said that “any exercise of physical powers must surely rest with the police.

“Are we going to train a new breed of DWP officers who have to be tough and able to act as police? It is quite nonsensical.”

Baroness [Claire] Fox, a non-affiliated peer and former Brexit Party MEP, added: “I do not want DWP civil servants, who might have been on a minor training course, to have that power. I think it is wrong.

“For them to have that power of physical force aimed at people on benefits seems wholly wrong and morally dubious.”

The Conservative shadow work and pensions minister Viscount Younger – a former DWP minister – said the government had “yet to offer a convincing explanation of why DWP officials need this power at all”.

He said Conservatives were “deeply concerned” by the new powers being granted to DWP investigators through the bill, and said the measures raise “profound questions about the limits of state power and the safeguards that ought to accompany it”.

Work and pensions minister Baroness Sherlock accepted that the bill would give authorised and trained DWP officers powers to use reasonable force against individuals, but she told fellow peers that the intention was for them “to be able to use that against property, not against people”.

And she said the search, entry and seizure powers would only be used for “serious organised criminality” and “where the DWP has a reasonable belief that someone has intentionally committed sophisticated, often high-value fraud against the DWP” and not against “an average benefit claimant who has accidentally overclaimed by £20”.

She said the “intention is that reasonable force will be used only against things, not people”, which “will be made clear in guidance and training”, and that the powers “will enable DWP-authorised investigators to use reasonable force to access locked cabinets and digital devices once they are lawfully on a premises”.

She said the law would also require that any application to the courts for a warrant to access a property would have to include “information about any vulnerable individuals who may be present on the premises”.

But an amendment proposed by Lord Vaux to remove from the bill the power to use reasonable force against individuals was approved by peers by 212 votes to 144.

Among the disabled peers voting in favour of Lord Vaux’s amendment were Liberal Democrats Baroness [Celia] Thomas and Lord Addington, and Conservatives Lord [Kevin] Shinkwin and Lord [Chris] Holmes.

No Labour peers voted in favour of his amendment.

It is not yet clear whether DWP ministers will attempt to re-introduce these powers into the legislation before the bill becomes law.

A DWP spokesperson said this morning (Thursday): “The amendment is subject to parliamentary process and will be discussed in the house in the next stages of the bill.”

The bill is due to return to the Lords today for its third reading, before it returns to the Commons for discussion of amendments made by peers.

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