The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, has announced a confidential benefits and tax advice hotline. The hot line is a further effort to reduce the number of people working in the black economy, and to reduce the number of people defrauding the Inland Revenue and the benefits system.

People currently cheating the system have been warned that a clampdown will be made in six months a time. A new approach of "two strikes and you're out" for the benefit cheats will come into effect. Anyone caught cheating the system twice will lose all benefits. It is proposed that the agencies will also check claimants' telephone lines to see if they are working whilst claiming benefits.

The hotline is to encourage people to come out of the black economy and a rejoin the mainstream social system. For more information telephone 08456 086000.