Labour admits 60% of parents wrongly targeted in HMRC child benefit fraud crackdown

Of the 23,500 targeted claimants 15,000 have been identified as legitimate beneficiaries. Photograph: Sally Anscombe/Getty Images

More than 60% of parents who had their child benefit stopped by HMRC using incorrect Home Office travel data were not fraudulently claiming the support from abroad, it has emerged.

The scale of the government’s anti-fraud fiasco is four times higher than previously admitted, with 15,000 of the 23,500 parents targeted by HMRC now identified as legitimate beneficiaries living in the UK.