Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Hollern Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

We are getting on with it. I remind the hon. Gentleman that when we compare the scheme to the last Labour Government’s future jobs fund, we see that we have already comfortably exceeded the number of young people it supported into work. Those are good, well-paying jobs in sectors that, he rightly highlights, are some of those of the future.

[Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)]

12. What recent steps he has taken to help ensure value for money in public spending.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)]

I will comment specifically on some of the fraud relating to Government economic support schemes put in place during the pandemic. My colleagues and I share the anger and frustration of hon. Members across this House and of people across this country that schemes designed to help businesses to get through an unprecedented crisis were exploited by a minority. We rightly placed an emphasis on speed when introducing those schemes, but we will robustly pursue anyone who has taken advantage of the Exchequer.

[Kate Hollern]

I welcome the Minister’s response, but does he realise that people in Blackburn are really concerned about our cost-of-living crisis? They have a right to expect this Government to be prudent with the public purse, but what they find is that this Government simply do not operate under normal rules. They have hit working people and ordinary businesses with tax rises, yet wasted billions of pounds on contracts, fraud and outsourcing. Does the Minister accept that people should not have to pay for a Conservative tax rise when billions in taxpayers’ money has been leaked due to fraud and mistakes—or, as Lord Agnew said last week, “schoolboy errors”?

[Mr Clarke]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and I completely agree that we want to pursue fraud whenever it has occurred. That is why, at the March 2021 Budget, we established a £100 million taskforce with more than 1,000 employees, designed precisely to go after every penny that has been taken by people not entitled to it. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has already recovered and prevented £743 million-worth of loss; the taskforce is expected to recover £800 million to £1 billion from fraudulent or incorrect payments over the two years of its existence, and HMRC reserves the right to carry on for as long as it takes.