This is a big deal. Bank surveillance, social busting into your house and worse.
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Fantastic piece.
I commented, roughly, as follows (correcting a date and a typo)
The State posed for a few decades as concerned for the welfare of citizens (dating from 1948 most comprehensively) and has now stripped back that facade.
People who won’t do what they’re told are disproportionately picked out in school, scapegoated, put at a disadvantage, and then when these same people end up having Shit Lives (an actual Syndrome) bullying them and coercing them, beta test stock for what is down the line for all citizens.
Claire’s many excellent arguments could be backed up by one more. Those small acts of mercy towards one struggling sister, or neighbour, or son, might very well be pattern-matched and “linked” to a “fraud” or “overpayment”. This will chill the rest of society from lending a hand, AS WE USED TO DO before all this welfare legislation was enacted, and weaken social cohesion (not an unintended side-effect!)
The same deserving Vs undeserving binaries have been a feature for shaming and dividing weaker members of communities for literally centuries, once the Industrial Revolution had forced everyone into structured work for Capitalists.
Old old playbook, just different means, and ones which erase as much as they can of the milk of human kindness.
And i wonder by the way whether Labour will indeed repeal the Vagrancy Act in 2026. Getting rid of a cruel old law, or getting ready to enact much worse? Either way I’ll bet they’re expecting surges in homelessness, and thus in “Vagrancy”, as there need to be visible reminders of what happens…, to me, to you, in just two or three missed pay cheques’ time.
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That’ll be me:D
Hi folks - the bill has been amended by the House of Lords and the Commons disagreed with those amendments and has sent it back to the Lords - this is the final weeks of the Bill and no more amendments can be proposed.
https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3921/news
Fox’s comments:
"
Baroness Fox of Buckley
(Non-Afl)
Share this specific contribution
"My Lords, Ministers have noted in many of our exchanges that the Bill which we have discussed was a great improvement on the original Bill put forward by the previous Government. That is true, but it did not make it a perfect Bill. In fact, all sides of the House have constructively improved the content of the Bill. I really appreciate that the noble Baronesses, Lady Sherlock and Lady Anderson, put forward amendments that were not rewrites of the Bill, as we sometimes see in this House, but were based on listening to the debates that we had in Committee and so on. It is therefore much improved.
I want to note, in general but relating to this Bill, that those of us who have raised issues around civil liberties, privacy rights and transparency were not doing so to be soft on those who fraudulently take advantage of public funds in any way whatever. Those issues of civil liberties, privacy rights, transparency, accountability and so on were based on a firm belief that when the state takes more power, it is our responsibility to represent the public—not just in terms of money that is taken from them but the threat to rights that might be taken from them. I appreciate that the Government Front Bench listened to some of those concerns. I wish that they had listened to a few more but, for now, I think there was constructive engagement from all sides, and I appreciate that very much."
Who knows what will happen during this “ping pong” stage - I haven’t seen the amendments but if they keep getting discarded by the Commons then the Lords will probably just give way and the detail of the proposed amendments by the Lords become irrelevant.
I think we’re too late to the party.
cheers
PS the ÂŁ85 billion fraud and overpayment number is mostly estimated and includes tax frauds and underpayments - but of course does not include underpayments!
This all seems like Ferguson/Imperial College covid “statistics”.
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