DessertStorms

Jimmy ate my yogurt now he's putting it back
Used to ignore but I'll plain attack
Drop the defence now I've got you in my scope
Jimmy walk away from the fridge slowly

Got your email Jimmy, you sent it at night
You expect a response but I'm tucked in tight
I'm different now Jimmy, I'm in my power
I'll respond to your email at a reasonable hour
At a reasonable hour
At a reasonable hour
At a reasonable hoooouuuur

Self care, bad bitch, I'm a villain, I'm a villain, out of office email saying zero fucks given x4

You ask me to work late, but I'm all done
Off the clock punched out time for fun!
You ask me where I'm going so I tell you the truth
Jimmy boy I'm going to a spin class!
Kind regards, best wishes, EAT SHIT
Yours truly, sincerely, THIS BITCH
I'm different now Jimmy, I'm in my power
I'll respond to your email at a reasonable hour
At a reasonable hour
At a reasonable hour
At a reasonable hoooouuuur

Self care, bad bitch, I'm a villain I'm a villain, out of office email saying zero fucks given x6

NEW analysis has found that over £23 billion worth of welfare benefits went unclaimed in the last year.

The report, by Policy in Practice, found that the number had risen from £19bn the year before and that figures could be closer to £30bn if it were to analyse disability benefits and discretionary support.

Universal credit is the most unclaimed benefit at £8.3bn, with an estimated 1.4 million missing out on this type of support.

This is followed by carer’s allowance (£2.3bn), pension credit (£2.2 bn) and child benefit (£1.7 bn).

The analysis said that most claimants are simply unaware that certain benefits exist and cited navigating complex criteria as a serious barrier.

The report comes as household debt rises to £8.8bn a year.

Policy in Practice managing director Jade Alsop said: "Our findings show that as a society, we can’t afford not to consider these measures to prevent further costs to our health, education and social care services.

“It is estimated that, by improving pension credit take-up alone, the cost of social care will decrease by £4bn a year.”

Claire Atchia McMaster, director of income and external affairs at anti-poverty charity Turn2Us, said that feedback they receive indicates that accessing benefits is “complicated, inaccessible and emotionally draining.”

She said: “This complexity prevents millions from claiming vital support, exacerbating financial insecurity and impacting wellbeing.”

Ms McMaster called for clearer action from the government to ensure support reaches everyone who needs it.

Benefit calculators can be accessed on the Turn2Us and Policy in Practice websites.

Demand for private treatment booms as NHS waiting lists remain long, while more people also sign up for dental cover

Britain’s health cover market has grown by £385m in a year as the NHS crisis prompted more people to seek out private medical treatment and demand for dental insurance increased, according to a report.

The total health cover market, including medical and dental insurance and cash plans, grew 6.1% to £6.7bn in 2022, the latest year for which figures are available, according to the health data provider LaingBuisson.

About 4.2 million people were subscribed to medical cover schemes. Including dependants on the policies, 7.3 million people were covered – the highest number since 2008.

Since the market’s Covid-driven drop in 2020, when it declined by 2.2%, it has grown considerably faster than historical norms. Average annual growth was 6.1% between 2020 and 2022, compared with 1.7% between 2008 and 2019.

The NHS waiting list in England continued to lengthen, to a peak of nearly 7.8m last September. In February, it was still 7.5m and half of the patients had been waiting for 18 weeks or longer.

Private medical insurance, the largest part of the health cover market, grew by 6% year on year in 2022 to £5.3bn, more than triple the average annual growth rate of 1.8% between 2008 and 2019. After a decade of decline until 2018, more people signed up, particularly in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic which led to a backlog of major procedures such as hip and knee replacements.

Tim Read, author of the report, said: “Demand began to increase in 2018, as the NHS waiting list began to rise out of control. A new Labour government is likely to aim to tackle it but will have limited fiscal headroom to make substantial progress.

“With people still struggling to access NHS services and the waiting list remaining stubbornly high, there is little likelihood that demand for health insurance is going to fall any time soon.”

Read added: “Growth is led by company-backed schemes, which may suggest an increased awareness of the impact of employee ill-health on a business – and possibly frustration at the impact that an inaccessible NHS is having on productivity.”

Growing numbers of people are also paying out of their own pockets for medical treatment, despite the high cost of some procedures, such as knee operations which typically cost between £12,000 and £15,000.

Dental insurance and capitation plans (fixed monthly payments) have shown the highest growth of the market, up 9.7% year on year in 2022. However, most people who see a dentist privately pay for treatment without any cover.

The emergence of “dental deserts” – swathes of the UK where NHS dentists are not taking on new patients – means hundreds of thousands of people have turned up in hospitals or at GPs with severe tooth decay.

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The average health insurance premium went up to £1,225 in 2022 from £1,203 in 2021, according to LaingBuisson. Premiums on work policies went up to £975, while individual premiums rose to £2,252.

Insurers have flagged premium rises of more than 10%, with one placing them as high as 40% this year and possibly beyond. This reflects a rise in claims and higher medical costs. Some people who could not get what would have been a cheaper treatment option during the pandemic are now suffering from more expensive conditions to treat, Read said.

The UK health insurance market is dominated by Bupa, France’s Axa Health, Aviva and Vitality Health, which is owned by South Africa’s Discovery.

In dental insurance, the main players are Bupa, Simply Health and Unum, after Cigna left the UK market.

Read said: “I don’t think that the NHS is going to fall apart overnight or that the private sector is going to run rampant overnight. But I do think as people as customers, rather than people as taxpayers, are beginning to reconceptualise the value of paying additionally for healthcare entitlements, which technically they should get on the NHS.”

There were 830,000 unwanted moves in England over the past 12 months, meaning 40% have been forced to relocate

Unwanted home moves cost renters more than half a billion pounds a year, with tenants coughing up an average of £669 every time they are forced by landlords to leave their home, a survey has revealed.

Analysis by the homelessness charity Shelter estimated that there had been 830,000 unwanted moves in England over the past 12 months, meaning 40% of renters who move house are doing so because they have been compelled to look for other accommodation.

An unwanted move is defined as a fixed-term tenancy coming to an end, or tenants being priced out by a rent increase, being served an eviction notice or being informally asked to leave by the landlord.

Renters collectively spend £550m a year on moving costs, often paying rent and bills on two properties during the moving period, along with hiring removal vans, paying for stopgap storage and buying new furniture, Shelter estimates.

Natalie, 47, has moved 12 times in the past 21 years, and has been served with two no-fault evictions in the past 18 months. Although she has been in her new home for seven months, she still cannot relax and feels traumatised by her moving experiences. “I haven’t even unpacked properly,” she said. “I’m worried that as soon as I do, I’m going to have to move again.

“I’ve downsized to a studio. Most of my stuff is stored in a garage nearby that I’m renting for £75 and I had to shell out £750 on removal van hire alone. It took me 18 months just to pay back all the debts accrued from the last move, and then it happened all over again.

“There is nothing worse than being forced to move home,” she added. “Without a stable foundation, how can you lead a fruitful life?”

“This is money that renters will never see again,” said Tarun Bhakta, policy manager for Shelter. “It’s not a deposit that you may or may not get back at the end of your tenancy, it’s not money for your rental, it’s simply costs down the drain. Money for a removal van, for packing boxes, for new furniture; these are avoidable expenses that tenants are having to make against their will.

“Because of an abnormally and unreasonably unstable rental system, tenants are having to cough up millions and millions of pounds each year in moves that could otherwise be avoided, if the government had a backbone and delivered a strong, watertight renters’ reform bill.”

In April, the government signalled that it would make amendments to the long awaited bill, delaying the ban on section 21 evictions – the two-month notice, “no fault” compulsory orders to leave the property – and reneging on the promise to overhaul fixed-term tenancies.

New figures released by the Office for National Statistics show that average rents have increased by £107 a month nationally, and by £207 a month in London over the past year.

Polly Neate, the chief executive of Shelter, said: “Tenants are coughing up millions in unwanted and unwarranted moves, while the government runs scared of a minority of its own MPs. Instead of striking dodgy deals with backbenchers to strangle the renters’ reform bill, ministers should defend renters’ best hope of a stable home.

“With protections from eviction so weak and rents so high, we constantly hear from people forced out of their homes and communities at huge personal cost. It’s impossible for renters to put down roots knowing a no-fault eviction could plunge them back into chaos at any moment.”

A Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities spokesperson said: “The renters (reform) bill will deliver the manifesto commitment to abolish section 21 evictions. It will be returning to the House of Commons shortly.”

Officials at Department for Work and Pensions accused of ‘threatening and cruel’ tactics over repayment orders

Government officials have been accused of using “threatening and cruel” tactics towards unpaid carers by saying they could face even greater financial penalties if they appeal against “vindictive” benefit fines.

This month a Guardian investigation revealed that thousands of people who look after disabled, frail or ill relatives have been forced to pay back huge sums after being chased by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over “honest mistakes” that officials could have spotted years earlier.

Dozens of unpaid carers have said they feel powerless to challenge the penalties, which often run into many thousands of pounds, even when the government is at fault.

Now the Guardian has learned that the DWP is warning carers that their fine may increase if they appeal against a repayment order.

In one letter in June 2023, the government department said that if the unpaid carer challenged the order “the entire claim from the date it started will be looked at, which could potentially result in the overpayment increasing, if there are more periods where your earnings exceeded the allowable limits”.

This carer, whose husband has dementia and Parkinson’s, had been ordered to repay nearly £4,000 for unwittingly exceeding the weekly earnings threshold of £151 by calculating her zero-hours job on a monthly basis – as she believed the rules required – rather than on a four-weekly basis.

The former council worker said the penalty had “destroyed” her confidence and left her feeling unable to challenge the DWP. “I can’t afford this bill but I can’t afford to argue with them because if I do I’ve made these mistakes already, chances are I’ve made other mistakes,” she said.

Cristina Odone, head of family policy at the centre-right thinktank the Centre for Social Justice, described the DWP tactic as “threatening and incredibly cruel”.

She said: “Again and again, if you talk to ordinary people, the DWP raises their hackles and their fears because it is the state possibly coming to claw back benefits.

“It is the most hostile bit of the state for so many people. This just confirms their wariness of the DWP as the bit of government that is the least sympathetic, most faceless and most heartless.”

Unpaid carers are entitled to a carer’s allowance of £81.90 a week – the smallest benefit of its kind – providing they care for someone for at least 35 hours a week. They are allowed to work but must not make more than £151 a week after tax and expenses.

People who make more than the £151 weekly limit, even as little as 1p more, must pay back the entire week’s carer’s allowance for the whole period in which they were in breach of the rules, in what has been described as a “cliff edge” approach.

Tens of thousands of carers have unwittingly fallen foul of this rule and have not been alerted by the DWP until years later, even though the government has real-time technology that means it can spot and stop these infractions much sooner.

Carers have been plunged into debt, forced to sell their homes and given criminal records over what they say were “honest mistakes” that should have been spotted much sooner by the DWP.

Three former work and pensions secretaries, including Iain Duncan Smith, have called on the government to pause investigations into unpaid carers and launch a review of its failings. Debbie Abrahams, a Labour MP on the Commons work and pensions committee, has called the DWP’s approach “simply vindictive”.

Jolyon Maugham, director of the Good Law Project, a campaign group supporting unpaid carers, said the DWP’s attempt to dissuade people against appealing was “quite troubling and quite unsavoury”.

Maugham said: “Parliament has set up an appellant system to enable appeals against demands that people repay carer’s allowance. For the DWP to take steps to discourage people from using this very important safeguard is itself quite troubling.”

Emily Holzhausen, director of policy at Carers UK, said unpaid carers feel “stuck in a place where they feel unable to challenge decisions – even though they have a legal right to do so”.

The DWP said: “Carers across the UK are unsung heroes who make a huge difference to someone else’s life and we have increased carer’s allowance by almost £1,500 since 2010.

“We have safeguards in place for managing repayments, that’s why visiting officers are available to provide support and assistance to customers when attending their homes, particularly for those deemed vulnerable.

“Claimants have a responsibility to inform DWP of any changes in their circumstances that could impact their award, and it is right that we recover taxpayers’ money when this has not occurred.”

alt text: "stop normalising the grind and start normalising whatever this is" above a painting of a forest where two bear cubs are up on their hind legs dancing together and two other bears are chilling under a tree watching them

Disabled activist Neil Goodwin was arrested under the controversial Police, Crime, Sentencing, and Courts Act outside parliament

The below article is an opinion piece from Neil Goodwin, an activist who was arrested for blocking an entrance to parliament with his mobility scooter

[Click to listen to the article]

I’m in Westminster Magistrate’s Court at 10am on Wednesday 3 April, charged with blocking the entrance to parliament in my mobility scooter; I’m disabled, living with multiple sclerosis (MS). This is a bit of what I am hoping to tell the judge.

Protesting the climate crisis as a disabled person

On 19 July 2023, exactly a year on from the hottest day on record and the devastating Wennington wild fire, I travelled up to parliament to protest. It was a Wednesday, and Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) was on – the busiest day of the week for parliament and for the media who cover it.

I positioned myself in front of the carriage entrance, facing towards the road:

[Photo]

I had dressed up the basket on the front of my mobility scooter to look like it was on fire, with a warning sign on the from showing a disabled wheelchair user caught between a fire and a flood – referencing the Wennington wildfire exactly a year previously.

It also referenced the danger from flash flooding, which was tragically emphasised in the run up to my plea hearing by the death of an 83-year-old Chesterfield woman called Maureen Gilbert, who drowned in her home during Storm Babet, as she was unable to escape the rapidly rising water inside her terrace home owing to mobility problems.

I carried a placard with fake flames coming out of the top, that said, ‘I cannot run from a Climate Emergency’. Neither run literally, because of my disability, nor run from what I feel is my social responsibility to try and spotlight the implications of a climate emergency, not just for disabled communities, but for all vulnerable people – the old and the frail.

Cops provide a concerning response

I asked the first police officer who approached me, I believe my arresting officer, to turn on his body cam and record a safety announcement – me detailing my various disabilities.

I explained exactly why I was there, and I was told that I was liable to be arrested.

I remember asking one officer, I think my arresting officer, to see it not as an arrest, but a demonstration in how difficult it would be to save someone like me from a fire at a moment’s notice and carry me to the safety of a police cell. To see it as an exercise in preparedness, as it were – to which, I remember him saying:

If you were in a burning building, I’d throw you over my shoulder and carry you out.

I remember thinking, if you threw me over your shoulder, it would be like throwing a 13-stone ironing board over your shoulder, as my back and neck are almost entirely fused, and you’d probably drop me and/or break my neck in the process. It certainly wouldn’t be that quick and easy.

I was given every opportunity to leave, invited on numerous occasions to carry out my protest along the pavement, away from the entrance. But it felt right to remain just where I was: right in the middle of what they like to call the Sterile Zone.

Now prosecuting disabled people to acting ‘socially responsibly’

It’s strange, but I felt both my strongest and weakest at the same time. Surrounded by cops, one of whom apparently had a best friend with MS, yet none of whom could lay a finger on me, through fear of breaking something.

Who knew that fragility could become a super-power; the burning issue of climate change held aloft, perhaps barring the way of prime minister Rishi Sunak who’s motorcade would have usually swept past by then.

So, I was arrested under section 143 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 which I thought was quite apt, as I sincerely believe that I was acting socially responsibly raising these urgent issues, especially for disabled, vulnerable and frail people; those who will be shoved onto the front line of this Tory government’s war against the weather.

I pleaded ‘not guilty’ because I don’t think that I did anything wrong. My mum told me to tell the judge that I had seen the error of my ways – when in fact some of us were beginning to feel a real terror in our days:

[Click through to article to watch video]

What an icon ✊

Happened upon this movie last night on tv, definitely going to have to give it another watch when I'm more alert, some fantastic critiques of the advertising industry and capitalism in general. This clip had me cracking up..

If you're in the UK it'll be on all4, otherwise I'm sure it exists to watch elsewhere.

'The Bill only targets the less well-off. There is no equivalent surveillance of legislators who accept payments to advance the interests of their corporate paymasters.'

Prem Sikka is an Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex and the University of Sheffield, a Labour member of the House of Lords, and Contributing Editor at Left Foot Forward.

George Orwell’s iconic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in 1949, warns of a dystopian world where The Party or the government undermines people’s rights, independence and autonomy through fear and propaganda. Constant surveillance is a key weapon for disciplining people and shaping their minds.

That world has arrived in the UK, the self-proclaimed mother of parliaments. The new tyranny isn’t ushered in by some communist, socialist or military regime but by a right-wing elected government.

The latest weapon is the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill which puts the bank accounts of 22.4m people under constant surveillance. In true Orwellian doublespeak, the government claims that the Bill allows “the country to realise new post-Brexit freedoms” and links surveillance to people’s fears about frauds.

The Bill uses developments in electronic transactions and artificial intelligence to place the poor, disabled, sick, old and pregnant women under surveillance. It gives Ministers and government agencies powers to direct businesses, particularly banks, and financial institutions, to mass monitor individuals receiving welfare payments, even when there is no suspicion or any sign of fraudulent activity. No court order is needed and affected individuals will not be informed. The Bill enables Ministers to make any further regulations without a vote in parliament.

Currently, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) can request details of bank accounts and transactions on a case-by-case basis on suspicion of fraudulent activity.

The government says the Bill “would allow regular checks to be carried out on the bank accounts held by benefit claimants to spot increases in their savings which push them over the benefit eligibility threshold, or when people send more time overseas than the benefit rules allow for. This will help identify fraud [and] take action more quickly.”

A pernicious aspect of the Bill (clause 8) is that makes it very difficult for people to find out the information held about them by government agencies. Requests can more easily be dismissed as vexatious or excessive.

On 29 November 2023, the Bill was passed by the House of Commons by 269 to 31 votes. A Labour Party spokesperson said “We support the Bill” and the party abstained on the vote. It will now come to the Lords.

The new surveillance powers are to be applied to around 22.4m people claiming a variety of benefits. The UK has some 12.6 million recipients of the state pension, and many retirees claim means-tested benefits because the state pension is too low to live on. So retirees too are included in the 22.4m people subject to surveillance.

How prevalent is benefit fraud? The government estimates that for the year 2023 the benefit fraud was £6.4bn (2.7% of total). The government claims that mass surveillance would reduce fraud by £600 million over the next five years though this somehow became £500m during the debate in the Commons, i.e. £100m-£120m a year. During 2023-24, the government is expected to spend some £1,189bn. So, how significant is a potential saving of £100m-£120m in that context? Or is the Bill just distracting attention away from other objectives by demonising the less well-off?

The focus on bank accounts suggests that the government is looking for unusual patterns. So, if you give a lump sum to a loved one for Christmas, birthday, holiday or home repairs, and it passes through a bank, the government could seize upon that as evidence of excess resources and reduce or stop benefits. Suppose a poor person pawns some household items for a few pounds and that temporarily boosts bank balance. Would that person be penalised?

Any government serious and even-handed about tackling fraud would arguably extend surveillance to arenas other than just benefits, but it does not. Billions of pounds have been lost due to government related frauds in pandemic management, Covid loans and contracts for cronies, but none of the individuals involved are under financial surveillance.

The Bill only targets the less well-off. There is no equivalent surveillance of legislators who accept payments to advance the interests of their corporate paymasters. Earlier this year, in a sting operation former chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, and former health secretary, Matt Hancock, agreed to work for £10,000 a day to further the interests of a company, but there is no surveillance of the bank accounts for former ministers.

There is no surveillance of the bank accounts of bankers engaging in illicit financial flows. The defence industry has a long history of engaging in bribery and corruption to secure contracts, but its bank accounts are not subject to surveillance. Energy companies also do the same, but neither theirs nor their directors’ bank accounts are subject to surveillance.

Since 2010, HMRC has failed to collect between £450bn and £1,500bn of taxes due to evasion, avoidance and errors. Most avoidance schemes are designed and marketed by bankers, accountants and lawyers, but the Bill does not put their bank accounts under surveillance. Major accounting firms are central to concocting abusive avoidance schemes, but despite strong court judgments, no major accounting firm has been investigate, fined or prosecuted. Research shows that people are 23 times more likely to be prosecuted for benefit offences that tax offences.

This Bill is part of a long line of laws that frames the working class as the problem because they withdraw labour to improve their pay and working conditions. The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for workers to take strike action. So, what are workers to do about worsening pay? People might protest, but the The Public Order Act 2023 has criminalised protests that can cause “serious disruption” to two or more people or to an organisation in a public place.

The government blames the working class for social ills without addressing any of the underlying social problems. Former Prime Minister Liz Truss described UK workers as the “worst idlers in the world” even though they work some of the longest hours in Europe. However, work does not pay enough even though corporate profits are booming. Some 38% of the 6.2m people on Universal Credit are in employment. 58% are women as gender pay gap persists, and the government does little about the underlying issues. Those receiving low wages turn to social security support and become subject to surveillance.

The scapegoating of the working class is carefully wrapped in claims about Brexit opportunities and fraud prevention. In this way, the government (or The Party, as Orwell called it) erodes people’s ability to think rationally and makes them believe its propaganda. People are constantly told that they must sacrifice their liberties and freedoms for the greater good of the society, which is equated with greater good of capital and wealthy elites. The government thinks this commitment will somehow make people forget about the harsh realities of 7.8m waiting list for NHS hospitals, hungry children, crumbling schools, cost of living, poverty and economic failures. People need to produce counter narratives to check the continuous erosion of hard-won rights.

Impact assessment forecasts that prosecutions will rocket, but claims staff will take ‘account of circumstances and vulnerabilities’ of benefit recipients and ‘no automatic decisions will be made on data alone’
New laws allowing the Department for Work and Pensions to monitor the bank accounts of benefit claimants are predicted to lead to 7,400 extra prosecutions for fraud each year – resulting in 250 custodial sentences.

The forecasts are made as part of the department’s newly published impact assessment for proposed legislation that would require financial institutions to provide government with data on account holders that receive benefits. The aim of the new law would be to alert the DWP to benefits being paid in error or obtained fraudulently when a recipient has understated their savings or income. Currently, the DWP can only undertake checks of account data for a named individual who is already under suspicion of fraud.

The ability to monitor potential fraud in a more proactive way will result in “an additional 74,000 prosecution cases, 2,500 custodial sentences and 23,000 applications for legal aid” over the 10-year period considered by the assessment.

This would seemingly represent an enormous rise on the current levels of prosecution with only 487 cases referred to prosecutors by the DWP during the 2022-23 year, according to recent evidence submitted to the Public Accounts Committee. Over the past three years, an annual average of 385 people have been convicted based on these referrals.

The assessment document indicated that DWP caseworkers will bear in mind the potential vulnerability of claimants and automation will be used responsibly.

“[This] measure can potentially include vulnerable people, [and] these areas will be explored further in the equality impact assessment,” the document said. “We are clear, however, that no automatic decisions will be made based on data alone, and DWP staff will follow the usual business processes when looking into any cases, taking account of circumstances and wider vulnerabilities before deciding on a course of action.”

The DWP said that it has already had discussions with banks, building societies, and trade body UK Finance and has been “clear that any data received under this measure should not be seen as indicative of any financial crime” in and of itself.

“Many claimants will have a legitimate, authorised reason to hold savings in excess of capital benefit rules – disregards for injury compensation, for example – and in many cases, overpayments could have been caused by genuine claimant error,” the assessment said. “Given this, we have been clear that there should be no action to de-bank claimants.”

The department also said that it will make sure to “protect privacy… only looking at data that is signalling potential benefit fraud and error and only drawing in data on DWP customers, [and] will create a system for [banks] that is effective, simple, and secure and data will be transferred, received, and stored safely”.

The assessment concludes that the proposed “measure is proportionate and targeted and will help DWP tackle fraud and error more effectively”.

‘A clear message’
The department projects that implementing the data-sharing policy will cost £370m over the coming years, and then £30m a year in staffing and other operational costs from the 2031/32 year onwards.

The initiative will deliver overall benefits of £2.93bn – equating to a net return of £2.57bn, it forecasts.

Plans have been made to test the data-sharing with two – unspecified – banks or building societies in 2025, with a full-scale rollout across all institutions from 2030 onwards.

This will encompass all of the 15 banks and building societies that, collectively, receive 97% of all benefit payments. This includes: Bank of Scotland; Barclays; Halifax; HSBC; Lloyds; Metro Bank; Monzo; NatWest; Nationwide; Santander; Starling; The Co-Op; Royal Bank of Scotland; TSB; and Yorkshire Bank.

While extending data sharing to cover the smaller institutions that constitute the other 3% “would likely be ineffective” and overly burdensome, the DWP believes it is “important to not shut off this option in primary legislation as we do not want fraudsters to see this as a loophole and change their banking approach to deliberately circumvent our measure”.

Work and pensions secretary Mel Stride said: “These new powers send a very clear message to benefit fraudsters – we won’t stand for it. These people are taking the taxpayer for a ride and it is right that we do all we can to bring them to justice. These powers will be used proportionately, ensuring claimants’ data is safely protected while rooting out fraudsters at the earliest possible opportunity.”

The plans for giving the DWP access to bank data were announced as part of a range of what the government described as “common-sense changes to the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill”.

Other proposed legal changes would see social media firms required to retain the data of users that have died by suicide. This information “could then be used in subsequent investigations or inquests”, according to the government.

UK counter-terror police would also be empowered under the updated law to retain indefinitely the biometric data of individuals with a conviction overseas.

Secretary of state for science, innovation and technology Michelle Donelan, said: “Britain has seized a key Brexit opportunity – boosting small businesses, protecting consumers and cracking down on criminal enterprises like nuisance calling and benefit fraud. These changes protect our privacy and data while also injecting common sense into the system – whether it is cracking down on cookies, scrapping pointless paperwork which stifles productivity, tackling benefit fraud or making it easier to protect our citizens from criminals. These changes help to establish the UK as a world-leading data economy; one that puts consumers and businesses at the centre and removes the ‘one-size-fits-all’ barriers that have held many British businesses back.”

The amendments are set to go through the report stage in the House of Commons tomorrow, before then making their way on to the House of Lords.

E: archive.org gave me some options which I need to test, but for now I'm calling it SOLVED, thanks!

I know I'm not meant to ask for a specific title, but it's the second in the series where you age up your empire wink wink..
Looking for the HD edition in English, so far I just keep getting Russian versions, if I risk downloading at all, since most the sites that are coming up in my search look dodgy af..