Covid support scheme fraud costs taxpayer over £10bn

THE British taxpayer has lost more than £10 billion on Covid support schemes as a result of fraud and error, figures released by the Government show.

Labour has accused ministers of attempting to “bury bad news” about public sector fraud losses totalling more than £50billion by publishing the figures in a mass data dump.

Last month, the Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) released a report on the “cross-Government fraud landscape”. According to the report, the total level of fraud and error in Covid support schemes amounted to an estimated £10.3billion. Outside Covid schemes, the PSFA estimated that total fraud and error in 2021-22 came to between £39.8 billion and £58.5 billion.

The revelations follow criticism of the Government’s efforts to tackle fraud. In 2022, Lord Agnew, the antifraud minister at the time, resigned during a Lords debate in which he accused the Treasury of having “no knowledge of, or little interest in, the consequences of fraud” and making “schoolboy errors” in relation to Covid loans.

Labour questioned the Government’s decision to quietly release the report on the final Thursday before Parliament’s Easter recess as one of more than 120 “transparency” documents. The data dump has been described as “take out the trash day” amid claims that it is used by ministers to try to conceal bad news.

Darren Jones, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said: “The Conservatives tried their best to bury these figures under a mountain of other trash – but they cannot hide the truth that warnings were ignored and billions of pounds of public money was handed out to fraudsters.

“Instead of working tirelessly to recover that money on behalf of the British taxpayer, Rishi Sunak wants to hush it up and write it off.”

A government spokesman said: “This is a wilful mischaracterisation of the Government’s commitment to transparency and our ongoing efforts to improve how we detect and crack down on public sector fraud and error ... Since autumn 2021, we have invested more than £1billion to take action, including launching the PSFA – which has saved taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds in its first year alone.”