The DWP’s plan to force banks to carry out surveillance on claimants’ accounts has fallen at almost the last hurdle, as a result of the prime minister’s decision to call a general election.
The Data Protection and Digital Information Bill had passed all its stages in the House of Commons and got as far as the committee stage in the House of Lords. It was virtually certain to become law in the near future.
The new law would have obliged banks to pass on information to the DWP relating to whether claimants’ accounts had gone over the capital limit and whether claimants had been using their account abroad for an extended period. It would have affected almost nine million people.
More worryingly still, the law was not limited just to banks. It would have allowed the DWP to order any organisation to hand over any information it required or face a large fine. Bank surveillance was just the thin end of a very large wedge.
The UK Information Commissioner had criticised the wording of the new law as being too loose, over 40 organisations had condemned the proposals and petitions against it had gathered over 100,000 signatures.
Nonetheless, the government was determined to push the bill through, regardless of the level of opposition.
But, whilst many other bills were passed in a hurry in the last days of this parliament, there was sufficient opposition in the House of Lords to prevent the bank surveillance bill being nodded through.
So, in the end it was not protestors who stopped the DWP getting new snooping powers, it was prime minister Rishi Sunak.
It will still be open to a new government to revive some or all of the bill, however.
