Thousands of families have been wrongly stripped of child benefit due to flawed Home Office travel data, prompting calls for an urgent independent inquiry. Andrew Snowden MP, the Conservative MP for Fylde, said the government 'must take immediate and transparent action' to address the failures of the anti-fraud benefits crackdown.
Snowden described the errors as 'not minor', noting that child benefit provides vital support for many households. He demanded a full review of how the system was authorised, including how unreliable travel data was used to make decisions on family benefits. His comments follow a Guardian and The Detail investigation revealing that HMRC suspended child benefit for 23,500 families based on erroneous data that recorded flights out of the UK but not return journeys.
The treasury committee, chaired by Labour MP Meg Hillier, and the Liberal Democrats are also seeking answers. John Vine, a former chief inspector of borders and immigration, said the cases highlight broader weaknesses in the UK's entry and exit recording systems, which he described as a recurring theme in his annual reports. The most recent independent chief inspector's report, published in September, found Home Office data was 'often incomplete, inconsistent, or simply wrong'.
Privacy experts have raised concerns about 'function creep', with Sana Farrukh of Privacy International noting that passenger name record data, originally shared only for counter-terrorism and serious crime purposes, is now being used for benefit checks. An HMRC spokesperson apologised to those affected and said the process has been updated to give customers one month to respond before payments are suspended.
