Baroness Lister: We must tackle the unfairness of debt caused by DWP mistakes

Baroness Lister writing for PoliticsHome:
The DWP recently published its annual estimate of fraud and error levels in the benefit system in Great Britain. ‘Official Error’ overpayments had increased from £0.8 billion to £1 billion – over half relating to universal credit.
The cost of those mistakes is borne not by the DWP, but by the people it is meant to support. This was not the case for most benefits before universal credit was introduced and is not the case for many other benefits now. It stems from the Welfare Reform Act 2012, when the Coalition Government gave the DWP the power to recover all universal credit overpayments however caused.
This is a system and an injustice that the current Labour Government has inherited – but now has an opportunity to put right by using [the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill] to demonstrate that our commitment to trust and fairness is about more than words.
This is why I have tabled an amendment to bring the test for recovering universal credit overpayments into line with the current Housing Benefit test. It would ensure that official error universal credit overpayments could only be recovered where individuals could reasonably be expected to realise they had been overpaid …
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