UK loses £15bn to Covid loan fraud

UK Feb 23 rt.com  - At least £15 billion ($20.39 billion) of taxpayers’ money has been lost through fraud and error in the government’s Covid emergency loan schemes, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) claimed in a report published on Wednesday.  

The estimated loss to fraud and error across all Covid-19 response measures is expected to be at least £15 billion across the scheme and loans implemented,” the committee’s report outlined.   

Chair of PAC, Meg Hillier, stated that UK will be “paying the costs of Covid” for “at least the next 20 years,” calling on the government to account for how much has exactly been spent in response to the pandemic.   

PAC gave the UK Treasury until the end of 2022 to provide estimates of how much was lost to fraud and error loses across each individual scheme, as well as how it plans to recover those finances.