Just 2% of calls made to the official Covid Fraud Hotline are being investigated
Just 2% of calls made to the official Covid Fraud Hotline are being investigated, evaluation has revealed.
Three years on from the scheme being created, solely 103 investigations are ongoing from the 5,124 calls made. Rishi Sunak has been criticised for “turning a blind eye” to an estimated £7.2billion misplaced to Covid-related fraud.
The Hotline figures have been revealed by Cabinet Office Minister Alex Burghart in response to a written parliamentary query. He mentioned solely 20 operations arising from referrals are nonetheless being pursued by the National Investigation Service, whereas an additional 83 stories are being investigated by the Insolvency Service.
In January 2022, Tory Treasury Minister Lord Agnew resigned over Covid fraud, accusing the Government of getting “little interest in the consequences of fraud to our society”. Then-PM Rishi Sunak hit again to say he was “not ignoring it, and I’m definitely not writing it off”. “Clearly criminals have sought to exploit our support schemes. We’re going to do everything we can to get that money back and go after those who took advantage of the pandemic,” he mentioned.
But Labour has accused the Tories of not doing sufficient to retrieve misplaced taxpayers’ cash. At the get together’s convention in October, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves pledged to create a Covid corruption commissioner if Labour will get into energy, promising to “go after those who profited from the carnival of waste during the pandemic”.
Whitehall’s spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, discovered earlier this yr that the “overwhelming majority” of losses occurred within the early levels of the disaster when the Covid-19 enterprise grant scheme didn’t require pre-payment checks for companies. Eat Out to Help Out and the furlough scheme have additionally been blamed.
The Hotline was established in October 2020 as a joint initiative between the Cabinet Office and the unbiased charity Crimestoppers.
Labour’s Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones mentioned: “Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money was lost to fraud and corruption during the pandemic on Rishi Sunak’s watch. And yet, the Conservatives are turning a blind eye and letting those responsible off the hook. “Unlike this out of touch Conservative government, Labour understands the value of taxpayers’ money. That is why we will appoint a Covid Corruption Commissioner with the powers to get that money back and put it back where it is needed in our schools, hospitals and police.”
