£350m child benefit fraud hit
Tens of thousands of families living abroad will be stripped of their Child Benefit in a massive government clampdown – saving the taxpayer a whopping £350 million.
A new specialist fraud-busting team will use international travel data to spot parents who’ve left the UK but carried on cashing in. Ministers say the move will put a stop to one of the biggest benefit scams in Britain.
Pilot snared 2,600 cheats
The blitz comes after a pilot scheme saw just 15 investigators catch out 2,600 claimants who had quit the UK but still claimed Child Benefit. The small squad saved £17 million in under a year – that’s more than £1m each.
Now the government is beefing up the unit to more than 200 investigators, sending a clear message: if you’re fiddling Child Benefit from abroad, your time’s up.
Minister’s warning
Cabinet Office Minister Georgia Gould MP said: “This government is putting a stop to people claiming benefits when they aren’t eligible to do so. From September, we’ll have ten times as many investigators saving hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayer’s money. If you’re claiming benefits you’re not entitled to, your time is up.”
Child Benefit currently supports 11.9 million children in 6.9 million families. But rules state that if you’re outside the UK for more than eight weeks, payments may stop unless there are exceptional circumstances.
Big brother-style checks
Investigators will cross-check Child Benefit records against international travel data. Where evidence suggests someone has left the UK, HMRC investigators will step in and verify before payments are cut off. Every case will still be looked at by a human, and officials admit some cases are genuine mistakes.
Protecting taxpayers
The government says the crackdown protects “hardworking families who play by the rules” and ensures every pound goes where it should.
But for thousands of cheats milking the system from overseas, the message is clear: the gravy train is over.
