Tag Archives: covid fraud

25 June 2025 – today’s Federal press releases

By Mark Valladares | Wed 25th June 2025 - 10:30 pm

PAC Covid loans report: unacceptable still no sign of the billions “mugged from taxpayers”
Lib Dems demand mandatory vote in Parliament before any British forces sent to conflict zones as nearly 60% of Britons back a vote ahead of any UK action in Iran
Trade Strategy has “missed the mark” and shows a Government “cowering in the corner” – Lib Dems

PAC Covid loans report: unacceptable still no sign of the billions “mugged from taxpayers”

Responding to the Public Accounts Committee report which states that the Government has been “dangerously-flat footed” in recovering taxpayer losses from fraudulent Covid loans, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP said:

Nearly a year after the Government announced its Covid corruption czar, it’s unacceptable that there’s still no sign of the billions of pounds that were mugged from taxpayers.

The Conservative Party oversaw awful abuse of the public finances, essentially allowing a dodgy get rich quick scheme to operate at the expense of people struggling with the catastrophe of the Covid pandemic. But now under this Government, those people seem to be getting off scot free.

Ministers cannot allow this situation to drift any longer. We must see real focus at the top of Government so that these people have to bear the full force of the law and these billions are returned to taxpayers pockets.

Lib Dems demand mandatory vote in Parliament before any British forces sent to conflict zones as nearly 60% of Britons back a vote ahead of any UK action in Iran

The Liberal Democrats have tabled a bill to legally require a Parliamentary vote ahead of the Government deploying British soldiers abroad, as compelling polling commissioned by the party shows that nearly 6 in 10 Britons (57%) believe Parliament should vote on any UK military action taken in Iran.

Posted in News and Press releases | Also tagged calum miller, daisy cooper, trade policy and us attack on iran | 1 Comment

14 August 2022 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Sun 14th August 2022 - 10:30 pm

Government set to recover just a third of the £1 billion it pledged to claw back from Covid fraudsters
IPPR Analysis: Energy bills threaten to plunge millions into poverty this winter

Government set to recover just a third of the £1 billion it pledged to claw back from Covid fraudsters

The Government promised to recover £1bn between April 2021 and April 2023, but with just £226 million collected in 2021-22 it is all but certain to break its pledge.
Fraudsters are now on track to get away with £8 of every £10 they stole with £3.7bn of taxpayers’ money written off.
Liberal Democrats call on Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak to appoint a new fraud minister on day one to track down stolen taxpayers’ cash

The Government’s Covid fraud taskforce is on track to recover just a third of the £1 billion it pledged to claw back from fraudsters, new analysis of HMRC figures have revealed.

In 2021 Ministers set up the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce with the aim of recovering £1 billion of stolen funds related to its Covid support by the end of 2022-23. But new figures published by HMRC show the Government is lagging far behind this target.

They show the taskforce has recovered just £226 million so far in 2021-22, plus a mere £9 million in the first month of 2022-23. If it continues at this sluggish pace, the taskforce would bring back just £335 million by April 2023 – missing its target by two thirds, and allowing fraudsters to get away with another £665 million of stolen taxpayers’ money.

It means Covid scheme fraud is currently set to land taxpayers with a total £3.7 billion, with fraudsters keeping £8 of every £10 they stole. That money could fund the increase of nearly 2.3 million families’ energy bills as prices are set to rise again this October.