... Big Brother Watch slammed the new powers. Director Silkie Carlo said: "Starmer's benefits bank spying proposals sound alarmingly similar to the powers Labour fought just a few months ago in opposition. Everyone wants fraud to be dealt with, and the government already has strong powers to investigate the bank statements of suspects.

"But to force banks to constantly spy on benefits recipients without suspicion means that not only millions of disabled people, pensioners, and carers will be actively spied on but the whole population's bank accounts are likely to be monitored for no good reason."

Carlo said a "financial snoopers' charter" designed to automate suspicion of the UK's poorest people was intrusive, unjustified, and risks the kind of injustice seen during the Post Office Horizon scandal.

"This is yet another insult to pensioners, an attack on Britain's poorest people, and an assault on the presumption of innocence," she said.