Covid fraud will cost UK up to £15.7b: MPs

New York

FRAUD and error on the UK's coronavirus support programmes is expected to cost British taxpayers as much as £15.7 billion (S$29 billion), an influential panel of lawmakers said, calling on the government to ensure transparency around ongoing costs associated with the pandemic.

Some £5.3 billion of cash lost through fraudulent or mistaken claims is estimated to have been in Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak's flagship furlough programme, the cross-party Public Accounts Committee said in a report published Wednesday (Feb 23).

That's 8.7 per cent of payments made under the programme, which paid idled workers as much as 80 per cent of their wages. Other loans and grants programmes added to what the panel branded as "unacceptable" losses.

The government has spent £261 billion on 374 different measures tackling Covid so far, according to the panel. That is expected to reach £370 billion over the lifetime of the measures, with some loan repayments not due for two decades. It pointed also to other losses, including £21 billion of loans that the government doesn't expect to ever be repaid.

"Lack of preparedness and planning, combined with weaknesses in existing systems across government, have led to an unacceptable level of mistakes, waste, loss and openings for fraudsters which will all end up robbing current and future taxpayers of billions of pounds," Committee Chairman Meg Hillier, a member of the opposition Labour Party, said in a statement. BLOOMBERG