PENDLE MP Gordon Prentice is backing demands for a crackdown on benefit fraud.

Labour's Shadow Social Security Secretary Chris Smith called for new action to catch benefit cheats.

And the Government has adopted nationwide a successful telephone hot-line pilot scheme pioneered in Blackburn and Burnley.

Mr Prentice claimed that the level of benefits fraud was higher than ever.

He highlighted a recent report from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee which condemned the Government's failure to prevent massive losses from fraud.

The PAC estimates that the real level of fraud is more than £2 billion annually - double the government's figure of £1 billion a year.

The Labour backbencher said: 'There are no ifs or buts when it comes to fraud.

"There are people who are knowingly ripping off the system and they need to be caught. Every £1 wrongly spent by the DSS or lost to fraud is £1 less for those in real need.

"Levels of fraud are enormous - an estimated of £1.4 billion a year on income support alone. And overpayments of income support due to benefits agency inefficiency amount to more than £500 million a year.

"The government is long on rhetoric but short on practical action. After 17 years in office they have no-one to blame but themselves. Their record is woeful."

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