Tackling Fraud and Preventing Government Waste

Debate between Rachel Reeves and Richard Fuller

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

My hon. Friend speaks powerfully. I would like the Minister to explain, at the Dispatch Box, why drugs gangs got tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money when my hon. Friend’s constituents could not get a penny.

The Chancellor and other Ministers were warned repeatedly about the risk of fraud. In June 2020, the Chancellor was advised by the Fraud Advisory Panel, Transparency International, Spotlight on Corruption and the former director of the Serious Fraud Office that there were

“serious weaknesses that enable fraudsters and corrupt insiders to exploit the bounce back loan scheme and the covid business interruption loan scheme.”

and that that would create a “risk to the taxpayer”. They offered to provide the Chancellor with information, advice and support to improve the control of the funds, yet it seems the Government were not interested in that advice.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Stripping away the political rhetoric, the hon. Lady is making some very serious points for the Government to consider. However, on reflection, does she now think it was wrong for her Labour colleagues in 2021 to call so readily for the Government to use taxpayers’ money to support GFG Alliance, which was subsequently investigated by the Serious Fraud Office?

[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.