As a carer, I’m outraged by the Government’s mass bank spying powers

As an unpaid carer, I already navigate an unforgiving system that treats me with suspicion rather than support. Now, the Labour Government wants to introduce mass bank spying powers subjecting carers like me to an unprecedented level of surveillance.

With the worst case scenario being suspension of benefits, these powers will make life even harder for disabled people, carers, and the unemployed. The Labour government’s Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill, which claims to launch the “biggest fraud crackdown in a generation”, does not target fraudsters – it targets people like me.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) already has extensive powers to investigate fraud. The idea that they need more is a political smokescreen – one that shifts blame onto the most vulnerable rather than addressing real systemic failings. This bill would force banks to hand over bank account details, subjecting ordinary people to a level of scrutiny normally reserved for criminal investigations. It assumes that everyone claiming benefits is a potential criminal, reversing the presumption of innocence and putting millions under financial surveillance.

But we are not criminals – we are part of a people struggling to survive.

The DWP already operates a deeply flawed system that unfairly penalises claimants due to administrative failures. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of carer’s allowance.

Carers, who provide an estimated £162 billion worth of unpaid labour to the UK economy, receive a paltry £83.30 a week in carer’s allowance – provided they do not earn more than £196 a week from work. As a carer, if I accidentally earn even £1 over this threshold, I would be forced to repay my entire allowance for that week. That means if I earn an extra £1 each week for a whole year, I would owe the government £4,331.60.

These penalties are often applied months or even years after the fact, as the DWP is too understaffed to check alerts in real time. Carers do not have the time or resources to navigate this bureaucratic nightmare, yet we are the ones punished when mistakes inevitably happen.

Instead of fixing these glaring injustices, Labour’s new bill will expand the DWP’s powers to trawl through bank accounts, looking for “errors” that could justify further punishments.

The bill also introduces a deeply punitive and unnecessary measure: the power to revoke driver’s licenses from those deemed to have received fraudulent overpayments. This is nothing more than performative cruelty. Taking away a person’s ability to drive does not solve fraud – it simply makes life harder for those who rely on a car for work, medical appointments, or, in my case, my responsibilities as a carer.

Carers often need to travel significant distances to provide care. Stripping them of their licenses would only add another obstacle to an already unbearable burden. The real impact of this measure will not be on “fraudsters” – it will be on hard working, unpaid carers like me who are already drowning in an unfair system.

The Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill does more than just expand state surveillance. It sets a dangerous precedent: that people in need of support are inherently suspicious and must be monitored. This creates a two-tier justice system, where financial privacy and the presumption of innocence only apply to those who do not rely on the state.

If the government gets away with this now, where does it stop? Will the next step be surveillance of people receiving NHS treatment to check if they’re “abusing” services? Will pensioners have to prove they really deserve their state pensions? Once we normalise mass financial surveillance of benefit claimants, the principle of financial privacy is gone for everyone.

Labour was elected on a promise to protect the vulnerable. This bill is a betrayal of that promise. As a young carer and a Labour supporter, I am distraught, angry and let down.

If Labour truly wants to tackle fraud, it should properly fund the DWP’s investigative capabilities, ensuring accurate and fair assessments rather than mass surveillance. It should reform the carer’s allowance system to prevent punitive overpayment demands. It should recognise that the real problem is this system that is designed to trip people up rather than support them.

This government needs to decide: does it stand for the people who elected it, or does it stand for the punitive bureaucracy that seeks to punish them? If it chooses the latter, it will not only lose my support – it will lose the trust of millions who believed in its promise of a fairer society.

Led by Big Brother Watch, numerous civil society organisations including Disability Rights UK and Age UK, have been tirelessly campaigning against the introduction of these unprecedented powers that seek to penalise, rather than support, society’s most vulnerable. Over 236,000 people have signed Big Brother Watch’s petition calling for these powers to be urgently dropped.

If you agree that Labour must stop this attack on the most vulnerable, contact your MP today and demand they oppose the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill. Britain’s financial privacy and freedom are at stake.

– Charlie Davies
Charlie Davies is a full-time carer, a Digital Communications Volunteer for Big Brother Watch, and a member of the Labour Party

The post As a carer, I’m outraged by the Government’s mass bank spying powers appeared first on Big Brother Watch.

Source: https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/blog/as-a-carer-im-outraged-by-the-governments-mass-bank-spying-powers/