Rosenblatt
  • About
    • Memery Crystal
    • Investors
  • Services

    Services

    Rosenblatt is a disputes powerhouse. Competitive in the best sense, our teams provide incisive specialist expertise and collaborate closely with one another to meet our clients’ needs across the full spectrum of their activities.

    • Dispute Resolution
    • Construction, Engineering and Energy
    • Corporate Investigations
    • Debt Recovery
    • DLT, Digital Assets, and Tokenisation
    • Financial Crime
    • Financial Services
    • Insolvency & Financial Restructuring
    • International Arbitration
    • Probate & Wills
    • Serious & General Crime
    • Tax
    • Non-Contentious & Advisory
  • Insight
  • Events
  • Group Litigation
    • Amazon Legal Action
    • Property Investment Scheme Claims
    • Apple Class Action
  • Contact

COVID-19 | Support Schemes Cost Taxpayers More Than £30bn | Rosenblatt’s Financial Crime Team

23rd July 2021

Ministers have warned that the COVID-19 support schemes have cost taxpayers more than £30bn to date with many more billions expected to be lost.

COVID-19 Fraud | Rosenblatt’s Financial Crime Team

It is believed that up to £27bn which was paid by the Government through the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS) will not be repaid because many businesses went bankrupt or cheated in their applications. Many individuals provided fake tax returns and bank accounts for non-existent businesses to secure these loans. In one incident, an individual took out a bounce bank loan in the name of a luxury car dealership in an attempt to buy a £41,000 Porsche from the same firm. Many critics of the BBLS state the Government’s promise to underwrite loans from the banks was the scheme’s biggest flaw, incentivising the lenders to make minimal checks as they would not lose out if the money was not repaid. We have considered the BBLS in further detail in our earlier article.

In addition, blunders and over-claiming of Universal Credit payments rose to an all-time high of £5.5bn over the last year up to March 2021.

The Commons Public Accounts Committee fears vast sums have gone missing over the past year from funds that were designated to protect those businesses and individuals hit by the pandemic. Councils are responsible for delivering many of these COVID-19 support schemes, but the Committee stated there was ‘worrying evidence’ of their inability to investigate the potential misuse of the money received.

This COVID-19 deficit is in addition to the £51.8bn in public money that the Government believes is lost to fraud and error annually. This is broken down into £26.8bn which is lost through the tax and benefit system with a further £25bn lost in areas of public spending which Government is unable to specifically identify.

The Committee Chairman, Dame Meg Hillier noted earlier this month that “fraud is never acceptable and when so many were suffering as a result of Covid, the Government needs to tackle the fraudsters robustly.” She added that the “committee has long been concerned about the impact of departments’ own errors – including overpayments which need to be clawed back – which leads to further hardship for the already vulnerable.”

Accordingly, many MPs are now calling for the names of businesses that were awarded COVID-19 loans and grants to be published, demanding the Treasury to set out new transparency guidance for Government support in the next 6 months. The Committee believes this will provide whistle-blowers with the opportunity to report suspicious claims.

A spokesperson for the Committee added that the “HM Treasury and Cabinet Office should, within six months, introduce mandatory fraud-impact assessments that require formal sign-off… for all Government “major project portfolio” programmes and for all other schemes that departments identify as having a moderate to high risk of fraud or error.”

The Committee further noted that it was ‘unacceptable’ that it took the Treasury 12 months to approve £100m of funding for the HM Revenue & Custom (HMRC) Taxpayer Protection Taskforce which was not announced until March of this year. The taskforce was introduced to tackle fraud linked to COVID-19 support measures, which many believe should have been introduced sooner as the Government knew there was a heightened risk of fraud.

Janet Alexander, Director of the HMRC Taxpayer Protection Taskforce confirmed that “HMRC is measuring the level of error and fraud within the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, Self-Employment Income Support Scheme and Eat Out to Help Out scheme. We have already opened 12,000 inquiries into suspicious claims, and have made eight arrests with more in the pipeline.”

Ms Alexander did concede that, “we know some people will have made genuine mistakes and these people should not be worried. They just need to get in touch so we can help them rectify the issue quickly. However, HMRC will take robust action to recover money from people who have made fraudulent claims.”

Rosenblatt can help

Rosenblatt has a wealth of experience in criminal law and is uniquely placed to support client’s crime needs during these unprecedented times, consistently ensuring a familiarity with the ever-changing Government guidance on COVID-19.

https://www.rosenblatt-law.co.uk/services/financial-crime/#financial-crime


We at RBG/RBL support and encourage free/independent thinking in relation to issues which are sometimes considered to be controversial subject matters. However, the views and opinions of the authors of articles published on our website/s do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, practices and policies of RBG Holdings/RBL.

Post navigation

Cryptocurrency | UK Police Seize Record £180m of Bitcoin Linked to Money Laundering | Rosenblatt’s Financial Crime Team
Cryptocurrency | Crypto Scammers Fleece British Couple of £15,000 | Rosenblatt’s Financial Crime Team

Categories

  • Articles
  • News
  • Videos

Topics

  • Banking & Finance
  • Competition & Regulatory
  • Corporate
  • Dispute Resolution
  • DLT, Cryptocurrencies and Crypto Assets
  • Employment
  • Financial Crime
  • Financial Services
  • Insolvency & Financial Restructuring
  • International Arbitration
  • Investigations
  • IP/Technology/Media
  • Real Estate
  • Tax
Rosenblatt
  • +44 (0) 20 7955 0880
  • info@rosenblatt-law.co.uk

Helpful Links

  • Anti-Modern Slavery Statement
  • Complaints Policy
  • Diversity & Equality
  • Interest
  • Pricing
  • Subscribe to our Mailing List

SRA No. 820215, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Ce Logo
Uk Top Tier Firm 2026

Rosenblatt is a trading name of RBG Legal Services Limited, a company registered in England and Wales (with company number 13287062) and which is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under SRA No. 820215. A list of the directors of RBG Legal Services Limited, together with a list of those persons who are designated as partners of Rosenblatt, is available for inspection at the registered office of the company at 165 Fleet Street, London EC4A 2DY.

Rosenblatt uses the word “partner” to refer to a senior employee or consultant. However, Rosenblatt is not a partnership and the use of the term “partner” does not create or imply a partnership amongst or between any of its employees or consultants.

© 2025 Rosenblatt

  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms & Conditions

Website by Brighter*IR

link

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in .

Rosenblatt
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookies should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

Performance cookies

These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!

Cookie Policy

More information about our Cookie Policy.