Two benefits administered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) are allegedly being handed to terrorists, hostile states and gangsters, according to a government report. A dossier shows that terrorists have received more than £28 billion of taxpayers’ money, including benefits.
Housing Benefit and Disability Living Allowance
The commission, commissioned and produced by the Cabinet Office but buried during the previous Conservative government, details payments including grants, Covid loans and two DWP benefits: Housing Benefit and disability living allowance (DLA).
Funds Misappropriated by Criminal Gangs
According to The Telegraph, billions of pounds went to organised crime, with millions reaching Russia and Islamic State. More than £28 billion ended up in the hands of hostile foreign agents between 2015 and 2021. A large proportion of the misappropriated funds went to criminal gangs, including human traffickers claiming housing benefits and disability allowances.
Expert Reactions
Rebecca Harding of the Centre for Economic Security said the dossier should be a wake-up call that “economic warfare and economic security are more important than ever before – there have been threats from adversaries, state actors and non-state actors that go through the business system.” She added: “One of the problems is we have assumed that everybody wants the same thing as us. What we haven’t realised is, when it comes to other countries... [some] want to project their economic power in a way that undermines our economic power. It is economic warfare, and we have been naive about all of this.”
Tom Keatinge of the Rusi think tank co-wrote a 2021 report on the issue, calling the lack of attention “given to fraud in the national security dialogue increasingly perverse” and urging a “greater role for the government intelligence architecture.” He told The Telegraph: “We have a history in the UK, more so probably than anywhere else in Europe, of government and industry respecting each other’s boundaries.”
Professor Nicholas Ryder, a former adviser to the home affairs select committee and an expert on terrorism financing at Cardiff University, described the findings as “staggering” and noted that “the link between fraud and terrorist financing is very clear.” He said: “The major problem with the UK stance is that the Government fails to recognise that particular connection between fraud and terrorist financing. It is a threat to national security… the threat is acknowledged, but sadly, at a policy level from successive governments, that link appears not to be joined up.”
Government Response
A Cabinet Office spokesman said: “This Government is taking unprecedented action to tackle public sector fraud, having saved over £7.5 billion of taxpayer money in the past year through aggressive fraud prevention and recovery. By using better data and hiring more expert investigators, we are now finding and stopping this fraud faster than ever before.”
