“We will track you down. We will find you. And we will bring you to justice” No this isn’t Tom Pursglove’s audition to replace Liam Neeson in the Taken franchise, but the beginning of a video posted by the Department of Works and Pensions on Twitter this week.
The minister for disabled people goes on to explain that he’s at a dawn raid which is a joint operation between the DWP economic and serious organised crime team and the Met police to catch “fraudsters who are cheating our benefits system”.
He explains that “The Fraud Plan” as it’s known is about tracking and bringing to justice “those responsible for perpetrating £9 billion of fraud over the coming years”
Okay, the first point I have to make here before I even get into how dangerous this ridiculous farce is. Figures from the DWP show that in 2021 8.6 billion pounds were lost to fraud and error- not all fraud. So there’s a couple of things to unpick here.
The minister just added an extra four hundred million pounds. That’s not a small amount to be rounding up. It’s not like when you round up to the nearest £1.
The 8.6 billion wasn’t all to fraud. Benefit fraud amounted to 6.5 billion pounds of the DWPs losses. Which might still be high, but in comparison the average ESA claimant gets less than 350 a month. So that's approximately four hundred and twenty thousand (back of an envelope maths) claimants the government are lying about.
“Error” is frankly an inaccurate word to use here. As benefits “error” encompasses a whole range of issues which usually arise when changes in circumstance are reported but the DWP pays the claimant anyway such as moving in with a partner or a claimant dying and are always made to be paid back.
That figure isn’t all disabled people, in fact, our main benefit PIP isn't even included. Here’s the thing though, Tom Pursglove is the minister for disabled people, not DWP overall. So when he’s running raids on benefit fraud it sends a message that he’s cracking down on those work-shy disability-faking fraudsters.
This is in no small part to how much the Tories demonise people on disability benefits as all fakers who don’t want to work and that it’s easier to leech off the state - something the media has sold for decades too.
However, the Tories are using “disability benefit scroungers” as their boogeyman in the hopes to turn working-class people against each other. Instead, we should be focusing on the real enemy.
By drawing our attention to the big bad benefit fraudsters we’re not scrutinising the 35 billion that was lost last year in unpaid taxes - and we all know who don’t pay their taxes.
In this country where the rich have all the power and give it to their mates, you’re twenty-three times more likely to be charged for benefit fraud than you are for tax fraud. Despite it costing taxpayers nearly six times as much.
It’s much easier to turn a nation against those who aren’t as able to fight back and too scared to put up a fight than it is the ruling class.
Disabled people aren’t the reason there are no jobs.
Single parents aren’t the reason your bills have tripled.
Jobseekers aren’t the reason you have to choose between heating or feeding your kids.
The Conservatives publicising their benefit fraud raids is a tactical campaign to get the public’s support in killing disabled and other at-risk people.
Please don’t let them, remember who the real enemy is.
