National Insurance

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord McKenzie of Luton)
My right honourable friend the Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform (Stephen Timms) has made the following Statement.

Over the course of 2008, the Government are reintroducing procedures to count foreign nationals in and out of the UK. We are introducing ID cards for foreign nationals, on a compulsory basis, to guard against fraudulent access to jobs and benefits. As part of our cross-governmental enforcement strategy, the DWP will further tighten the criteria for national insurance number (NINO) allocation to ensure that, where the partner of a legitimate benefit claimant has no right to be in the UK, DWP will no longer issue the partner with a NINO. This follows the successful introduction of right-to-work interviews for those applying for national insurance numbers in 2006.

This change will be made using the regulation-making powers under Section 1 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992. The intention is that regulation changes will be introduced at the earliest opportunity.