Government to fall short on clawing back Covid cash

THE Government is set to fall short of a target to recoup £1 billion lost to fraud and error on Covid support schemes, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

An analysis suggests that if performance is not improved, then £8 of every £10 improperly paid out will not be reclaimed.

In March 2021, ministers allocated £100million to create a “taxpayer protection taskforce” within HM Revenue and Customs, with a remit to recover £1 billion stolen or incorrectly paid for from Covid support by April 2023.

However, figures from HMRC show the Government is lagging far behind the target.

Just £226 million was recovered in the 2021-22 financial year, and £9 million in the first of month of 2022-23. If the taskforce were to continue at a pace of recovering £9million a month for the rest of this financial year, it would only recoup £335 million by April 2023 – missing the target by two thirds.

The Liberal Democrats, who conducted the analysis, said that this would result in £3.7billion being written off in relation to error and fraud on Covid schemes – enough to fund the increase of nearly 2.3 million families’ energy bills when prices rise in October.

Sarah Olney, the Lib Dems’ Treasury spokesman, said: “The Government has proven inadequate in their efforts to recover the money lost to Covid fraud.

“As hard-working people up and down the country are struggling to make ends meet, the carelessness shown by ministers is shameful.”

An HMRC spokesman said that when controls during the pandemic and recovery efforts prior to the creation of the taskforce were included, £1.2 billion had been protected or reclaimed.