Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill

Lord Rook Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 15th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rook (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the Bill and thank my noble friend Lady Anderson for her opening remarks. I am grateful also to other noble Lords for the sizeable support for the urgency of our situation and the aspirations of the measures in the Bill. I also look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, in just a few moments.

A hero of mine once pointed out to me that all financial documents are moral documents, and all financial policies are moral policies. While the measures that this Bill seeks to address are clearly fiscal, the motivations are rightly and justly moral. In the time available I will limit my remarks to the first part of the legislation.

I spent much of the Covid pandemic working with charities and churches, faith communities and local community groups, supporting the most vulnerable members of our community. While these organisations spent huge amounts of time and money to ensure that neighbours had food and pharmaceuticals, and worked to reduce loneliness and isolation and increase take-up of the Covid vaccines—among other heroic acts of service—other, unscrupulous actors took every opportunity to pick the public pocket, fraudulently redirecting essential emergency funding, purposed for the most vulnerable, into their own get-rich-quick scheme.

In a tragic turn, some of the same charities and community groups that saved lives in the pandemic have not themselves survived the Covid recovery. While these groups faced increased costs and diminishing donations, even greater demand for their services and near devastating cuts in government funding, the vast majority of those who defrauded the Government continue to enjoy the benefit of their ill-gotten gains, collectively to the tune of almost £10 billion.

Although, according to the NAO, more than £4 billion was lost through fraud and error through the Bounce Back Loan Scheme, and almost the same amount through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, for many charities bouncing back has been altogether more difficult, and in some cases, impossible. In the longer term, many former employees in voluntary sector and civil society organisations have not retained their jobs and have been subject to redundancy. More worrying still, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, remarked, a criminal culture of fraud has been cultivated during and since those Covid years. The National Audit Office cites that this type of fraudulent activity has only grown in the four years since, and without action, it will clearly continue to do so for some time.

Decisive action is clearly needed, and the measures outlined in the Bill are precisely what is needed. I agree wholeheartedly with my noble friend Lady Anderson when she says that this legislation is both “tough and fair”.

The measures in the Bill are timely and necessary. They will enable the Cabinet Office to deal more effectively with cases of fraud and error outside of the benefits and tax systems. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Alexander, that it makes a great deal of sense to give these powers to the Cabinet Office, and to develop the necessary expertise to deliver them. These powers and processes, readily available to certain other government departments, will provide the Cabinet Office and Public Sector Fraud Authority with the capacity they need to pursue those who perpetrated Covid fraud, along with other instances in the future.

I hope that, at a time when all noble Lords are anxious to protect the public purse, this legislation offers a route towards effective action and an efficient means of redress. By providing the Cabinet Office and the PSFA with the necessary powers for information-gathering, dissemination of information, search and seizure and the collection of communications data, we will enable the Government rightly and fairly to identify where significant fraud has taken or is taking place.

By providing the rights and approving the methods by which to recover these moneys lost to fraudsters, and by providing a framework for Ministers to impose civil penalties, we empower the Government to take action to recoup losses and ensure that justice is done. Furthermore, as has already been pointed out, if banks are using ever more sophisticated digital resources and capabilities to reduce the painful impact of fraud on individual members of the public, it follows that government should work with banks to reduce the negative impact of fraud on the public more broadly.

By prolonging the timeframe within which Covid fraud can be investigated and the perpetrators dealt with, we can maximise the moneys returned to the public purse, bring to book those who continue to benefit from a crime against their country and their neighbours, and send a clear message that a toxic culture among some, whereby fraud is considered a lesser crime, will not be tolerated—without breaking bones or spilling blood, as the noble and learned Lord just said. As I understand it, only £1.5 billion of the Covid fraud moneys has so far been recovered, which means that there is a lot more to be done and a lot more time is needed.

Finally, as already stated, these measures are tough and fair. The Government’s insistence on oversight and safeguarding requirements is welcome and necessary. It clearly makes sense to use legislation such as the Police and Criminal Evidence Act and models of investigation and action that are established in law and already effective in practice. The proposal to use the HMICFRS as a specialist inspectorate, along with the appointment of an independent chair and oversight team in the PSFA, should provide proper oversight to ensure that the Bill is implemented effectively and fairly.

At a time when millions rely on food banks and wider social support from the kind of charities and civil society organisations that we have mentioned earlier—and which served so faithfully through the pandemic—every penny stolen from the Government is a penny that cannot be used to help the most disadvantaged to escape poverty. Those who have defrauded the public purse are not simply stealing from the Government’s bank account; they are stealing from their neighbours, from those most in need, from those who are more deserving of our support and most in need of our care. This Bill seeks redress at least some of the damage done by those who have all too easily defrauded the public in years gone by; puts vital measures in place to confront a worrisome criminal culture which has become all too prevalent in our country; and provides a means by which to deter and deal with such behaviour in future.

With this, we return to the start. Financial documents are moral documents, and financial policies are moral policies. As noble Lords together, I hope that we will provide moral leadership in passing this Bill. I commend it to the House.