By james art 
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is seeking new powers to disqualify drivers and recover money directly from fraudsters’ bank accounts in a bid to curb welfare fraud.
Employment Minister Alison McGovern said she was confident the ability to go to court and apply to disqualify drivers who refuse to pay back fraudulently obtained benefits would work.
The DWP will also work with banks to see where claimants have more than the £16,000 limit in their accounts and will look to get its own search powers to obtain evidence rather than relying on the police.
The three measures in the Bill will help save the taxpayer £1.5 billion over the next five years, the DWP estimates.
Once the bill becomes law, fraudsters could be disqualified from driving for up to two years if they refuse to pay back the money they owe.
Courts can suspend fraudsters’ driving licenses after an application from the DWP if they owe welfare debts of more than £1,000 and have ignored repeated requests to pay them back.
The department will also have the power to obtain bank statements from people who think they have enough money to repay welfare debts but refuse to do so.
However, the DWP insists it will not have direct access to people’s bank accounts.
“Firstly, we want to work with the banks to see where people fall outside the eligibility criteria and get that information because it will help us detect fraud,” Employment Secretary Alison McGovern told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
“Secondly, we need the ability to have search powers ourselves to obtain evidence, rather than relying on the police as other parts of government do.
“We finally have these protection powers.”
The money can now be reclaimed through the benefits system, or PAYE, she said.
Ms McGovern said: “If someone is not doing any of these things then we need more powers to be able to get their money back.
“So the new powers will be to bring that money back through the banks.
“Finally, as a safeguard, if after all this they still don’t want to give us our money back … we want to be able to apply to a court to say ‘disqualify this person from driving.’
“It’s a safeguard to make sure we get that money back.”
This would be used “in extreme cases” to tackle benefits fraud, she told Times Radio.
“This is already a power that exists, for example, in the child support service, so we are confident that it will help us deal with these extreme cases,” she said.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall said the Government was “turning off the tap on criminals who cheat the system and steal money from law-abiding taxpayers”.
She said the measures would be backed by new safeguards to ensure the powers are used proportionately and safely, and that removing driving licenses would be a “last resort”.
In a bid to provide certainty about the Bill, ministers will introduce codes of practice for those who will use the new powers.
They also plan to introduce new oversight and reporting mechanisms to monitor how the powers are used.
Elsewhere in the bill, the Public Sector Fraud Authority will be given more powers to tackle fraud in the Covid era.
Helen Whatley, the work and pensions secretary, welcomed the measures and said they were a “continuation” of the work of the Conservatives in power.
She added: “But having knowingly appointed a convicted fraudster to his cabinet, Keir Starmer cannot be relied upon to be tough on fraud.
“Labour must do more to tackle the spiraling welfare budget and explain why it has not yet reached our £12 billion savings – raising the prospect of Rachel Reeves returning later this year with another tax attack on working people people.”