Covid-19: Financial Support Schemes

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Wednesday 6th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I think one of the reasons that the Treasury, and other government departments, can have high turnovers is that they have talented staff who do excellent work, and that can be desired by those in the other sector. We work hard to ensure that the Civil Service is a great place to work, and that people have the job satisfaction to carry on.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister says that the Government take fraud seriously. I am tempted to say that if they did, this would not have happened—but let us test that. In the Spring Statement, the Chancellor announced £48.8 million for this new authority, but that money is against an estimated loss of £15 billion from fraud and error across Covid-19 state-backed business schemes. The £48.8 million over three years is

“to support the creation of a new Public Sector Fraud Authority and enhance counter-fraud work across the British Business Bank”—

which lost lots of money—

“and the National Intelligence Service”,

with the intention of recovering “millions of pounds”. Those are the Chancellor’s words. Does that not tell us a lot about the Government’s priority in relation to this when, in the same Statement, the Chancellor announced investing

“£510 million to increase DWP’s capacity and capability to prevent and detect fraud and error”?