Financial Statement

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

At Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister batted away a question about fraud during covid by suggesting that it was just about delivery, but it was the Chancellor who gave the ministerial direction for the bounce back loans to be paid at such speed. With a check that was even 48 hours longer, the Government might have avoided the fraudulent duplicate claims that were not stopped until a month later. The £4.7 billion that was lost to fraud could have mitigated measures such as the national insurance increase. Does the Chancellor now regret that he did not pause for thought and that he was not more cautious about fraud?

[Rishi Sunak]

I have a lot of respect for the hon. Lady, but on this matter I believe she is wrong. She has incredible hindsight to point out now issues that neither she nor anybody else raised at the time. Quite the opposite, in fact: I was told daily in this Chamber to get money out not in weeks and months, but in hours and days. Putting longer fraud checks in place would have taken weeks, so I stand by the decision that we made.

We have put various safeguards in place. We have blocked £2 billion of bounce back loans—60,000 because of the checks at Companies House. The National Investigation Service and the National Crime Agency are in the process of successfully prosecuting dozens of people. We are striking people off from Companies House and we are investing more today in the NCA, NATIS and the British Business Bank so that they can work on the interventions that we know are doing very well. I think it is wrong for hon. Members to pretend now that they wanted to do something at the time, when they did not.