Internal documents reveal that HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) deemed the risk of withdrawing child benefit payments from parents without prior consultation as part of an anti-fraud drive to be “tolerable”, with only a “remote” chance of causing harm. The documents, released under freedom of information laws, show that officials recognised the potential for errors in Home Office travel data but pressed ahead with the crackdown.
The controversy erupted after HMRC suspended nearly 24,000 child benefit accounts between July and October. Parents received letters citing overseas holidays, sometimes from up to three years earlier, for which the Home Office had no record of a return journey. By November 30, almost 15,000 families had been confirmed as legitimate claimants, while only 1,019 (4.3%) were found to involve incorrect claims. Thousands of cases remain unresolved.
The documents show that a pilot scheme had revealed travel data was wrong in 46% of cases, and more than a third of those investigated for suspected fraud during the pilot were ultimately legitimate. Despite this, HMRC removed checks against PAYE records during the wider rollout to “streamline” the process, contributing to widespread errors.
Senior HMRC officials are due to face questions from the Treasury select committee on Tuesday. The committee previously stated that the department appeared to have been “cavalier with people’s finances”. Affected families reported considerable stress and missed payments as they scrambled to prove they had not emigrated.
Among the cases highlighted was a woman whose benefit was stopped after travelling to France to collect her husband’s remains, and a parent who travelled from Devon to Dublin for a funeral. Another parent was in intensive care with sepsis at the time she was alleged to have emigrated. The data protection impact assessment concluded there was no need to contact parents before suspending payments.
