Covid-19: Financial Support Schemes

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Wednesday 6th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I agree with the noble Earl, and I recognise that, particularly with bounce-back loans and the CJRS, the speed at which the Government needed to act was one of the trade-offs with the checks that could be put in place. We will make sure that lessons are learned, to ensure that we got that balance correct, but one of the reasons we introduced the Bounce Back Loan Scheme and reduced the checks on it, was that original government support programmes that had greater levels of checks were not getting the money to people who needed it, and the scheme prevented the loss of businesses and livelihoods in our economy.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, at 3.31 pm on 24 January, I asked a similar question. I did not get a reply, but the House was treated to an insightful resignation speech by the noble Lord, Lord Agnew. Among other things, he said,

“The oversight by both BEIS and the British Business Bank of the panel lenders of the BBLS has been nothing less than woeful. They have been assisted by the Treasury, which appears to have no knowledge of, or little interest in, the consequences of fraud to our economy or society.”—[Official Report, 24/1/22; col. 20.]


Assuming the Minister agrees with the statement, what action has been taken to rectify this lamentable situation?