Tackling Fraud and Preventing Government Waste

Kim Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I understand that MPs want to represent businesses employing people in their constituencies, but it is the role of the Chancellor and the Government to make sure that money goes only to people who deserve it, not fraudsters. The hon. Gentleman was a member of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, which I chaired. The Committee did ask the Government to get money to businesses that needed it, like those mentioned by Labour Members, but basic checks that could have been done in a matter of minutes were not done. He will know, because of this Government’s tax rises and the increase in energy prices, that an average household in his constituency will, from April, be £1,378 worse off.

[Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the £4.3 billion that has been written off is a disgrace, given that the austerity that local authorities have suffered over the past 12 years has had a major impact on the people they serve and our communities?

[Rachel Reeves]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Her council in Liverpool and all our councils have lost money, and this Government are handing it out to criminals. Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been written off, but it was not the Chancellor’s money to write off; it is the public’s. The Government have clearly lost their grip. We must restore faith and confidence in how taxpayers’ money is spent.

We have a National Crime Agency in our country for a reason: to tackle serious and organised crime. It should be the National Crime Agency that the Government ring first on such occasions, but instead there are reports that they do not even want it to look into the matter. The Chancellor said earlier that just 13 cases are being looked at by the National Crime Agency. That is why Labour has brought our motion to the House today: to call on the Government not only to come back by 31 March with a clear answer about how much of their money has been clawed back from criminals, but to allow the National Crime Agency full access to investigate all aspects of fraud within covid support. The Government should not be resisting any effort whatever to retrieve taxpayers’ money and to hold people responsible. We need to know how it is so easy for organised criminals to steal from right under the Treasury’s nose.