UK admits HMRC wrongly suspended child benefit for nearly two-thirds of families flagged by faulty Home Office travel data

21 December 2025 , 13:08

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UK admits HMRC wrongly suspended child benefit for nearly two-thirds of families flagged by faulty Home Office travel data

More than 60% of parents who had their child benefit suspended by HM Revenue and Customs after being flagged by faulty Home Office travel data were not committing fraud, the government has admitted.

New figures show that around 15,000 of the roughly 23,500 families targeted were legitimate UK-based claimants, meaning nearly two-thirds were wrongly caught up in the anti-fraud operation. The scale of the error is four times higher than previously disclosed, following investigations by the The Guardian and the Detail.

The admission came in a written parliamentary answer to Conservative MP Andrew Snowden, in which Treasury minister Dan Tomlinson said that by the end of November almost 15,000 suspended cases had since been confirmed as eligible for child benefit.

Snowden said the figures were “deeply troubling,” noting that only about 4% of families were ultimately found to be claiming incorrectly. He said many families relied on the payments for basic necessities and had lost support through no fault of their own.

Earlier correspondence from HMRC chief executive John-Paul Marks to Meg Hillier had suggested far fewer wrongful suspensions, but officials now acknowledge the number will likely rise further as thousands of cases remain under review.

The scandal emerged after parents who had travelled abroad — or were mistakenly recorded as having done so — suddenly had payments stopped. Investigations found HMRC relied on unverified passenger booking data and incomplete border records, leading to suspensions even where flights were cancelled, missed due to illness, or never booked at all.

Civil liberties group Open Rights Group has raised serious data protection concerns, questioning why safeguards used in pilot schemes were removed during the national rollout and calling for scrutiny by the Information Commissioner’s Office.

The government has now paused opening new cases based on travel data while existing ones are reviewed. HMRC says it will continue to pursue fraud but insists using international travel data remains its preferred method to limit checks to a small proportion of claimants.

Thomas Brown

Head of Investigations