Growing pressure is mounting on the UK government to launch an urgent and fully independent inquiry after thousands of families had their child benefit payments suspended due to flawed Home Office travel data. The data, used by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) in a new anti-fraud crackdown, wrongly suggested that parents had left the country and failed to return.
Andrew Snowden, Conservative MP for Fylde and assistant party whip, said the government must act decisively and transparently to address what he described as “serious and unacceptable failures.” He warned that thousands of families had been pushed into financial distress because of “unreliable or incomplete travel data” used to justify suspending essential benefits.
Snowden called for an independent review into how the system was authorised, including why questionable Home Office travel records were used to determine eligibility for child benefit. He insisted the review’s findings be published in full to ensure accountability. He stressed that mistakes of this scale are not administrative glitches but decisions that directly undermine financial security for low-income households, often determining “the difference between managing and falling into hardship.”
He criticised the system for forcing families to “prove their innocence” after wrongful suspensions left many out of pocket and struggling to pay for basic needs.
Revelations of Major Data Failures Spark Political Backlash
The demands follow an investigation by the Guardian and The Detail, which revealed that HMRC had suspended child benefit for 23,500 families based on inaccurate Home Office travel logs. These records often showed people boarding flights out of the UK but failed to register their return, leading to thousands of false alerts. Within weeks of the scheme’s launch, it became clear that many innocent parents—living and working in the UK—were wrongly flagged as having left the country permanently.
The Treasury Committee, chaired by Labour MP Meg Hillier, and the Liberal Democrats have both demanded urgent answers. Lawmakers warned that even short-term suspensions can cause immediate financial strain, including missed rent payments, reliance on food banks, and mounting debt.
Dozens of affected families reported distress and humiliation, with many saying they felt treated “like criminals.” Among the cases are a Ukrainian family who fled the war, a mother who missed her recorded flight because she was hospitalised with sepsis, and several parents who had actually stopped receiving child benefit months earlier.
Experts Warn of Longstanding Failures in Home Office Data Systems
John Vine, former chief inspector of borders and immigration, said these cases expose deeper, systemic weaknesses in the UK’s entry and exit records, warning that such systems should be “fairly accurate” given their importance for immigration, security, and benefits administration. He said the problems may indicate that the Home Office’s entry-exit tracking system is “not working properly” or is suffering major delays, adding that the home secretary should urgently order a formal inspection.
Vine also highlighted that poor data accuracy has been a recurring issue for over a decade. He said that during his tenure from 2008 to 2014, and in the reports of his successors, unreliable record-keeping was a consistent failing. This is echoed in the most recent annual report of the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, published in September, which concluded that Home Office data is “often incomplete, inconsistent, or simply wrong.”
Privacy Concerns Over Use of Passenger Data
Privacy experts say the Home Office appears to have used passenger name record (PNR) data—the detailed information collected when someone books a flight. This includes itineraries, contact details, addresses, and payment information. Historically, under post-9/11 US and European law, PNR data was shared only for counter-terrorism and serious crime investigations.
Sana Farrukh of Privacy International said the use of such data to police family benefits represents “a textbook case of function creep”—a situation where data collected for one purpose quietly expands into broader, unintended use over time.
HMRC Apologises But Insists Most Suspensions Were Correct
An HMRC spokesperson apologised to those wrongly affected and said immediate changes had been made to the system.
Families will now have one month to respond before payments are halted. The spokesperson added that HMRC remains committed to “protecting taxpayers’ money” and believes most suspensions were correctly issued, despite the acknowledged failures.
Rising Scrutiny of UK Data Systems and Welfare Checks
The controversy emerges as the UK government faces wider criticism over the reliability of Home Office data systems, including issues with the new Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) programme and delays in updating passport and visa records. The child benefit crackdown is part of a broader effort to tighten welfare fraud detection, but MPs now warn that inaccurate data tools risk punishing innocent families instead of catching fraudsters. The incident has intensified calls for stronger oversight of how government agencies use personal travel information.
