25m child benefit records lost

Reacting to the news that 25 million benefit records have been lost, George Osborne said the security and safety of "every family in the land" had been compromised.

Reacting to the news that 25 million child benefit records have been lost, George Osborne said the security and safety of "every family in the land" had been compromised.

The Shadow Chancellor questioned how the Government had allowed this to happen:

"Let us be clear about the scale of this catastrophic mistake - the names, the addresses and the dates of birth of every child in the country are sitting on two computers discs that are lost in the post. The bank account details and national insurance numbers of 10 million parents, guardians and carers have gone missing."

George described the crisis as the "final blow" to the ID card scheme, as it showed the Government "simply cannot be trusted with people's information."

And he told Chancellor Darling to "get a grip and deliver a basic level of competence."