Taskforce needed to probe billions lost to pandemic support scheme fraud - The Yorkshire Post says

It comes as MPs warned that the Government is on course to write off “at least” £4bn taken from taxpayers due to “unambitious plans for recovering overpayments of Covid-19 support”.

The Public Accounts Committee said HMRC have estimated error and fraud cost almost £6bn – set to be even higher once 2021/22 figures are taken into account – from the Government’s main Covid grant schemes in 2020/21 and is only planning on tackling the most “egregious” abuse.

This newspaper believes that a taskforce should tenaciously probe who took that money, what they plan on doing with it and how it can be recovered.

While the HMRC says "the cost of inaction would have been far greater than the cost of fraud and error", it is inconceivable that such vast sums could simply be written off after crooks exploited emergency schemes set up by the Chancellor Rishi Sunak to help an ailing nation. In the words of the PAC, this “risks rewarding the unscrupulous and sending a message that HMRC is soft on fraud” – and at a time when the cost of living is set to skyrocket.

As Dame Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the PAC, says: “With the current parlous state of the public finances we can ill-afford to be so cavalier over so much taxpayers’ money.

“Every taxpayers’ pound lost to a fraudster will lead to honest ordinary people feeling the post-pandemic pinch harder and harder.”

The motivations of fraudsters are in shameful contrast to the unstinting good will and efforts of those in health professions and scientific communities during the pandemic.

It would be an insult to all those who now find themselves in dire financial need if the opportunistic actions of such criminals are just ignored.