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Peter Bedford
Main Page: Peter Bedford (Conservative - Mid Leicestershire)Department Debates - View all Peter Bedford's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(2 days, 7 hours ago)
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Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)
Organised gangs operate in many spheres—sex, drugs and, as reported in the media, our welfare system. This totally undermines public confidence in the system. Will the Minister make representations to the Home Secretary to ensure that foreign nationals who are found to have abused our welfare system are removed from the country?
Andrew Western
I am very happy to raise with the Home Office the issue that the hon. Gentleman has highlighted, but I would say to him, and indeed to his colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench, that what genuinely undermines confidence in the welfare system is the record of the previous Government, who allowed welfare fraud to spiral towards £10 billion a year and failed to take the powers needed, as we are doing now, to get that number down.