Mistakes and fraud in Covid support was ‘unacceptable’, says MP

The head of an influential group of MPs has said the number of mistakes and opportunities for fraudsters in Government-backed Covid support was “unacceptable”.

Meg Hillier, who chairs the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), said the Government should be held accountable to those who pay off the massive bill for keeping the economy running during the pandemic.

“As the PAC has made clear across a series of reports on the costs of Covid, lack of preparedness and planning, combined with weaknesses in existing systems across Government, have led to an unacceptable level of mistakes, waste, loss and openings for fraudsters which will all end up robbing current and future taxpayers of billions of pounds,” she said.

“It is essential that for as long as we will be paying the costs of Covid-19, which is at least the next 20 years just in some of the loan repayment terms, the Treasury and all of Government continue to account specifically for what it has spent in response to the pandemic.

“Government must be held accountable in this way to all the future taxpayers who will be paying for this response. Crucially this must ensure lessons are learned for when the next big crisis hits – be it climate, health or financial.”

According to a National Audit Office from September, the full cost for the lifetime of the Government’s Covid-19 measures will reach around £370 billion.

The PAC said the Treasury should state what it has learned from the Covid response and what it is doing to collect lessons across Government departments.

It should also find out how much money has been lost in error and to fraudsters, how much of this will be recovered and how much it will cost to recover it.

The Government threw billions of pounds at Covid support schemes in the early days of the pandemic, as the Chancellor vowed to do whatever it takes to get through the crisis.

This included the bounce back loan scheme, which rapidly paid out money to small businesses that were struggling.

Along with other loan schemes, the Government now estimates it will never get back around £21 billion of the money that banks lent out. It will now have to step in to cover these losses.

A HM Treasury spokesperson said: “We reject the claims made in this report. No fraudulent payments have been written off and the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce is expected to recover up to £1bn from fraudulent or incorrect payments.

“Our Covid support schemes were rolled out at a time of national crisis, protecting millions of jobs and businesses when they needed it most.

“Thanks to the speed and scale of our intervention, the economy is back to pre-pandemic levels.

“The cost of inaction could have had a catastrophic impact on jobs and livelihoods.”