2 hours ago
5
More than 60% of parents who had their child benefit stopped by HMRC using incorrect Home Office travel data were not fraudulently claiming the support from abroad, it has emerged.
The scale of the government’s anti-fraud fiasco is four times higher than previously admitted, with 15,000 of the 23,500 parents targeted by HMRC now identified as legitimate beneficiaries living in the UK.
It means 63% of parents targeted in the anti-fraud debacle first reported by the Detail and the Guardian were legitimate claimants.
The admission by the government was revealed in a written answer to a parliamentary question tabled by the Conservative MP for Fylde, Andrew Snowden.
Dan Tomlinson, the exchequer secretary to the Treasury, told Snowden in his written answer that figures revealed that, as of 30 November, 14,994 of the 23,794 cases where benefit had been suspended had since “been confirmed to be eligible to child benefit”.
This is quadruple the number previously admitted by HMRC, which has repeatedly said it would not be entering a “running commentary” on the debacle.
Snowden said: “These figures are deeply troubling. HMRC has confirmed that nearly two-thirds of the families caught up in this exercise were fully eligible for child benefit, meaning only 4.3% were found to be claiming incorrectly.
“I grew up in a family that for a period of time, through no fault of our own, relied on the benefits system. So I know first-hand how distressing it will have been for those who will rely on that money to put food on the table.
“The important thing here is that these families, who have every right to the benefit, have had it removed from them through no fault of their own,” he said.
A letter in November from HMRC’s chief executive and first permanent secretary to Meg Hillier, the chair of the Treasury select committee, disclosed data only up to 31 October, a few days after the Detail and the Guardian exposed the incidents of wrongful suspension.
In that four-page letter, John-Paul Marks told her “3,673 out of 23,794 customers” had “their eligibility subsequently confirmed”.
That is likely to increase, with HMRC revealing that, with 8,800 cases remaining open, 1,019 so far have been fraudulent.
The move by HMRC caused uproar across the opposition benches when it was exposed by an investigation by the Detail in Belfast, where parents who had gone on holidays from the UK but returned via Dublin airport suddenly found their child benefit had been stopped.
A joint investigation by the Detail and the Guardian found the problem was spread across the country, with hundreds of parents in Britain also hit after it emerged the basis for the benefit suspension was Home Office data based on unconfirmed passenger bookings and incomplete exit and entry border data.
One woman told how she had had her benefit stopped after she apparently had not returned from a trip to Norway – a journey she never made, as the wedding she was due to attend was cancelled.
Another woman told how her benefit was stopped after she failed to make a flight as she had become seriously ill and was in intensive care with sepsis at the time of the alleged emigration.
A third was told her benefit had been stopped after one of her children had an epileptic seizure at the departure gate and they could not continue with their holiday.
In a new case uncovered by the Detail, one parent in England revealed she hadn’t even booked a flight out of the country but was still hit by the benefit freeze.
Tina Pearson, a childminder in East Yorkshire, suspected a scam when she received a letter notifying her that her child benefit was being stopped while HMRC investigated information it had that she had flown to Spain last year but not returned.
“I haven’t left the country in three years, I don’t have a passport. I’ve never been to Spain,” she said. “So it just seemed like a really weird letter to get.
“I ignored it, I thought, ‘Oh that’s a scam’. And then my child benefit didn’t go in.” She phoned HMRC and the mistake was immediately corrected.
HMRC had based its decision on incomplete Home Office records and apologised within days of the error being exposed.
It started a national rollout of the anti-fraud system in the late summer after a pilot scheme last autumn.
However, HMRC said it would continue tocrack down on fraudsters and would conduct PAYE checks before suspending future accounts.
Parents have told the Guardian that PAYE checks would not cover those who were self-employed or were on carer’s allowance or other benefits.
Experts at the Open Rights Group (ORG) have serious data protection concerns about the HMRC data processing and decisions to remove PAYE checks from the national rollout, even though they had been conducted in the pilot.
They also want to know if “risks were identified but ignored”, pointing out “in law the onus is on the data processor, but that onus has been shifted on to the customers” by HMRC.
Mariano delli Santi, the legal and policy officer at ORG, said: “My question is ‘Where is the Information Commissioner’s Office? Where is the regulator?’
“The ICO has the power to order the government to stop doing this.
“Why didn’t they open an audit? Why didn’t they open a formal investigation? Why didn’t they issue an information notice, a legally binding request to HMRC to give them information about what they are doing, whether they carried out a DIPA, etc?
“These are things that politicians are starting to ask, but MPs don’t have the investigatory powers that ICO does.”
Tomlinson told Snowden that the national rollout was “not comparable with the pilot”, with “different checks applied in the pilot”.
It appears from the answer to the second question posed by Snowden that the crackdown based on the Home Office data has now been paused.
“There were no new child benefit compliance inquiries opened using Home Office international travel data in the period 1-30 November 2025. This was because our focus during that time was on reviewing the circa 23,500 already opened,” Tomlinson said.
An HMRC spokesperson said: “The pilot showed that we can use international travel data effectively to tackle error and fraud, and it remains our best assessment for this compliance activity.
“Using travel data as a risk indicator allows us to narrow down our inquiries, meaning we contact less than 2% of child benefit customers rather than asking all recipients to regularly reconfirm their eligibility.”
If you have been affected by this story and want to share your experience, email: [email protected]
