The British taxpayer has suffered losses of more than £10 billion due to fraud and error in Covid support schemes, according to the Government’s own figures. The Telegraph has the details.
Labour accused ministers of attempting to “bury bad news” about public sector fraud losses totalling more than £50 billion 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 £10.3 billion.
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 commitment to tackling fraud. In 2022, Lord Agnew, the then anti-fraud minister, 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. …
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.
Worth reading in full.
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The government in 2020 – “We need to dish out money as quickly as possible to anyone who asks for it.”
Labour etc – “Do it quicker!”
Yes and Labour wanted / want earlier, harder and longer lockdowns, too.
In the North West it is well known that the curry industry enjoyed record, erm , “sales” during the “Eat out to Help out” free for all. Some of the businesses had rather short lifespans and mysteriously disappeared once the free cash scheme ended. I don’t know why. Very strange.
“Covid” was the biggest fraud in history
Governments everywhere stole our money and gave it to rich firms selling “tests” and “vaccines” that were not fit for purpose
True and Nut zero running a very close second!
Actually Nut Zero may be bigger as it will end up having a much longer run
Members of the House of Lords had fingers in the pie too. Baroness Michelle Mone was associated with the PPE scandal. She is currently on leave of absence. I suppose it was only several millions of pounds of public money anyway.
Ah yes Michelle. Did us for a paltry twenty six million (£) wasn’t it? She would probably be classed as a lightweight dipper.
The intention behind all the ridiculous and apparently reckless spending is to bankrupt the country. Clearly the Tories have been given that honour and Kneel has been given the job of selling the country. I expect a financial disaster within the next two years. And of course once the wholly engineered financial crisis hits some pretty severe restrictions on human rights will be required because even some of the sheep will be upset.
Didn’t Nadine Dorries in her book describe ‘blob’ controlling the tories and their intention was wipe out the Conservative party. That would make sense because if that was their intention what would they be doing any different. I would also extend that to what would the Archbishop of Canterbury be doing differently is the intention was to destroy the church from within?
Precisely, but I have long held the view that bankrupting the country is deliberate. Just look at the latest article ATL – the Navy spending £2.4 million on a diversity team when the service can’t even manage to protect us from dinghy invaders.
It’s a very sick joke.
Rather like the Pentagon shifting uncomfortably on a $2.3trn unexplained deficit the day before a provident ‘9/11’ airliner hitting amidships and destroying all the records, there was surely no more expeditious an opportunity to hide an awful lot of skulduggery and double-dealing than a seasonally normal respiratory virus the better to enrich the usual favoured few.
I am sure that their thirty pieces of silver will ease the progress of their souls.
I need to bind my head up tightly to try and prevent it exploding. I’ve run out of fingers and toes to keep count on, even at a billion per digit.
I really feel that a trip out with a pair of large pliers is called for.
My wife was subject to a fraud over the Covid support for business but the bank involved, HMRC and the regulators were not interested.