Benefit suspensions may have breached privacy law - experts

The government may have breached privacy laws when the child benefit of thousands of families was suspended on the basis of flawed Home Office information, legal experts have said.

- Lisa O'Carroll

At the same time, the UK's data watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), has contacted the national tax authority, HMRC, over the issues raised.

Pressure on the government has mounted as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for work and pensions, Steve Darling, said what had happened was "unacceptable".

Darling said: “After the carers allowance repayments scandal, this news raises fresh concerns that things are seriously wrong within our welfare system, with people paying the price through no fault of their own.

“Ministers must come clean on how exactly this error was allowed to happen in the first place, support affected families, and ensure that action will be taken to stop such mistakes from ever happening again.”

HMRC said it had reinstated payments to 1,979 families as of 31 October. While it was “confident” the “majority” of the 23,500 payments had been “suspended correctly” it urged anyone who had wrongly been penalised to call the helpline on their letter for a swift resolution.