Parliament: Social Security - Ministers `gone soft on fraud'

THE GOVERNMENT was accused yesterday of "going soft" on benefit fraud by cutting funds to investigators and scaling down national campaigns to root out criminals.

The Tories claimed that Alistair Darling, the Secretary of State for Social Security, had also deliberately understated by half the number of arrests for fraud in order to cover up his department's failures.

Iain Duncan Smith, the Tory social security spokesman, said that the Benefits Agency security investigation service (Basis) had had to cut back its operations because it was running out of funds.

Mr Darling had stated that there had been an average of 18 arrests per month from September to December by Basis's southern command. However, the chief executive of the Benefits Agency has now directly contradicted the minister, claiming that the real figure was 36 arrests per month for the region. Investigators said that had plummeted to 16 in January because their budget ran out.