Covid fraud figures are a stain on country's response to the pandemic - The Yorkshire Post says

The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy’s own estimates put the amount of cash lost to fraud and error to be $4.9bn.

The measures laid out by Chancellor and Richmond MP Rishi Sunak have justifiably received widespread praise.

Were it not for these the damage caused by the pandemic and the lockdowns imposed to mitigate its damage to public health would have been far more severe than the already devastating losses that Covid 19 wrought on the country.

However, that such colossal losses could be brought about due to loans issued to ineligible businesses, reveals widespread system failures at the heart of Whitehall.

A report from the Public Accounts Committee raises concern that identifying fraud and error so late will hinder recovery efforts. The scale of the fraud is so widespread that police face a hiding to nothing in seeking to identify those responsible. They do not have the resource, or the hours, to effectively conclude such investigations.

The characterization by Lord Agnew that more than 1,000 firms alone receiving support loans despite not trading at the start of the pandemic as “a schoolboy error” is an understatement.

Serious failings at the heart of the civil service have been highlighted by this scandal.

Embezellers were able to cash in at a time of national crisis with no repercussions. And while Mr Sunak’s stock may have risen by his stewardship of the economy during the pandemic, the scale of fraud inflicted on the nation’s finances remains a stain on this record.

Measures to prevent future crimes against the public purse must be enacted.