During the budget speech last month, Chancellor Rachel Reeves thanked Tom Hayhoe for his work in helping to chase down ‘nearly £400m from dodgy pandemic spending and contracts’.
So much for being the party of law and order and sound finances. It’s been revealed that Covid fraud under the last Tory government cost the taxpayer almost £11 billion, enough to provide a daily free school meal for the UK’s 2.7 eligible million children for eight years.
The Mirror reports that a report set to be published on Tuesday by the government’s Covid Counter Fraud Commissioner Tom Hayhoe will show that Covid fraud and error under the Conservatives cost the taxpayer a massive £10.9 billion.
The paper reports: “The damning report is expected to blame a lack of anti-fraud controls in Covid schemes that were set up quickly by Ministers, where the rushed rollouts meant “accepting a high level of fraud risk, without plans for managing or mitigating this risk ”.
A government source cited by the Mirror told the paper: “£10.9 billion of our money didn’t just disappear. Tory ministers handed fraudsters a golden opportunity through schemes so lax they may as well have left the door wide open.
“At the very same time that families were struggling, the Tories let money that could have fed a whole generation of children slip through their fingers. It is yet another reminder of the staggering waste and failure that defined their 14 years in office.”
During the budget speech last month, Chancellor Rachel Reeves thanked Tom Hayhoe for his work in helping to chase down ‘nearly £400m from dodgy pandemic spending and contracts’.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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