Speeches by Wood.

“I beg to move amendment 15, in clause 4, page 3, line 33, leave out “Minister” and insert “First Tier Tribunal”.”

“As I stated, those are largely probing amendments in areas that we would like to see the Government work on during the passage of the Bill. However, for now, we do not intend to push them to a vote. Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 4 Reviews”

“I thank the Minister for her response, which offered some moderate reassurance. We would be comfortable if either it was included in the Bill or we at least had sight of the code of practice, which will actually define that decision-making process. A fundamental flaw of this Bill Committee is that we are being asked to…”

“I thank the Minister for those responses, but I think that the first-tier tribunal is perfectly capable of dismissing applications that are without merit, without significantly extending the time. Given the importance of an independent appeal mechanism, I wish to push the amendment to a vote. Question put, That the ame…”

“Clause 10 allows the Minister for the Cabinet Office to act on behalf of another public authority to recover a recoverable amount, including bringing court or tribunal proceedings, and recovered money will be returned to the other public authority unless it is agreed that the Minister can retain some or all of it. We h…”

“Clauses 7 to 9 give authorised investigators the powers to enter and search premises and execute search warrants, and powers for the seizure, retention and disposal of property. Those are obviously extensive powers with potentially significant consequences. While strengthening powers to tackle fraud is welcome, we have…”

“As the Minister says, the clause will add the Cabinet Office to the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. The Act governs the powers available to the state to obtain communications and communication data, provides statutory safeguards and clarifies what powers different public authorities can use and for what purpose. This le…”

“I think we will come back to this issue at a later stage. I want to see some action on amendment 11 going forward, but, for now, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.”

“Clause 5 will give the Minister enormous powers to request and share information for the purpose of facilitating the Minister’s exercise of the core functions under the Bill. Given that the Minister’s core functions are to decide whether to investigate and take enforcement action, we are concerned that almost any infor…”

“Clause 4 gives the Minister a considerable amount of power to compel individuals, as well as organisations, to provide an unspecified range of information within what could be very tight timescales, on pain of a fine of £300 a day if they fail to comply. The only route to appeal these powers is going back to the person…”

“I beg to move amendment 12, in clause 4, page 3, line 33, at end insert— “or of the duration of the period mentioned in section 3(4)(a)”.”

“Amendments 12 and 13 are in a similar vein to amendment 14 —they allow the individual or organisation issued with an information notice to apply to the independent body or board for an extension to the 10 working days within which they are currently required to provide information requested in the notice, if they are r…”

“It is an honour to rise today to speak on behalf of the very many family businesses in Kingswinford and South Staffordshire, because family businesses are at the heart of our local communities as well as at the heart of our local economies. They provide employment for nearly 14 million people, they contribute £575 bill…”

“People throughout the United Kingdom will be disgusted if former terrorists such as Gerry Adams receive compensation from the taxpayer because of Labour’s decision to repeal the legacy Act without putting something in its place. Will the Secretary of State finally commit himself to legislating immediately to prevent th…”

“Q I will start by asking the panel a reasonably general question. What, in your experience, are the main limiting factors in investigating public sector fraud? Professor Button: There is a number of factors. Obviously, the first challenge with dealing with social security fraud and a lot of the rest of public sector fr…”

“Q Why does the decision seem to have been taken not to introduce these as statutory instruments? Andrew Western: The codes of practice?”

“Q Have you read it? Andrew Western: Not recently, but I did when I first became a Minister.”

“Q But Andrew, you will be aware that new statutory instruments can be introduced and passed in Parliament in the space of six weeks. It is not an obstacle to an iterative approach if you choose to have the codes of practice introduced through statutory instruments, as happens in some areas, and take an approach that ac…”

“Yes. Andrew Western: Because they are iterative documents that will change as we go through the test-and-learn phase. In particular, we are looking to introduce the eligibility verification measure in quite a cautious manner initially to check that it works, and to check that we do not have the sort of overreach that s…”

“Q Following that, the document states that “if Parliament is to be asked to enact statutory provisions relating to a code,” which appears to be the case in this instance, “a draft of the proposed code should if at all possible be made available so that the appropriateness of the statutory provisions can be properly con…”