Hansard

The Scottish Greens cannot agree to this LCM this evening. Part 2 of the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill

“assumes that all recipients of benefits have criminal tendencies and must therefore be denied financial privacy.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 May 2025; c 2372.]

Those are not my words, but the words of Labour’s Lord Sikka, speaking in the House of Lords about the bill just last month. The Scottish Greens reject the bill’s assumption outright and so cannot support the LCM. In addition, we cannot agree to any legislation that gives snooping rights to banks and other companies in the way that is enabled by the bill, even if not all those powers would be explicitly allowed in Scotland.

No court order would be needed for that unrestrained surveillance and individuals would not be told that they were being surveilled. There would be no right of appeal by those who were affected, and it is not clear what information would actually be identified by the surveillance or how fraud would be determined on the basis of that information. Because individuals would not even know that the surveillance was happening, they would have no chance to provide any explanation of their situation.

What if the algorithm that is used to identify that information makes a mistake? The Post Office scandal has surely taught us that computer systems are not infallible. Even a 1 per cent error rate could result in more than 1,000 people losing universal credit. How would they be compensated? How would they challenge that, given the widespread and on-going issues with lack of access to legal aid?

While the legislation initially allows for snooping on recipients of universal credit, recipients of pension credit and others, it is likely to be extended to recipients of other benefits, even if they are not specifically devolved and under the control of Social Security Scotland.

All of that is to tackle fraud, which we know accounts for only around a couple of per cent of annual welfare spending. Powers to snoop on all claimants on the basis of that tiny rate cannot be justified. The DWP already has powers to compel information holders to share data on individuals who are suspected of fraud, so, like Lord Sikka, I question whether the powers in the bill are necessary.

In short, the bill removes financial privacy from the poor, the old, the sick and the disabled. It is discriminatory. It turns on its head our normal presumption that people are innocent until proven guilty, and it makes a mockery of our equality and human rights laws. As such, we in the Greens cannot support this LCM this evening.