Have the Metropolitan Police and the Treasury got their priorities right?
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The Metropolitan Police is putting one of its most senior officers, Assistant Commissioner Jane Connors, in charge of what will clearly be a large and elaborate investigation into everything that happened in Downing Street during the lockdowns. “Operation Birthday Party” may last months and will certainly require dozens of the best officers in the force for however long it takes. Thank goodness that the Gold Commander of this Special Enquiry Team, Ms Connors is, we are told, a “no nonsense” copper. Even so, this operation is bound to end up as a tidy sum on the debit side of the Met’s annual accounts.
Meanwhile violent crime in London is soaring out of control, even in the West End. A few days ago there were stabbings in Selfridges — not for the first time, either. Last year was the capital’s worst ever for teenage murders, with 30 boys and young men stabbed to death. Across England and Wales, sexual offences in 2021 were also the highest ever recorded, with more than 61,000 rapes reported to police. But what are rape and murder compared to potentially illegal gatherings in Number Ten? If Ms Connors and her team get their man — code-named “Big Dog” — there should be promotions all round. After all, interrogating the people whose job it is to run the country is hardly a piece of cake. By the time it’s all over there might be a war on.
We are told that Sue Gray, the senior civil servant who has been carrying out her own inquiry, is concerned about the well-being of the junior staff who will be interviewed by Ms Connors and her team. Whitehall will therefore need to set up another team to support these traumatised officials through their ordeal. The whole process will inevitably end with dismissals and redundancies, after which new staff will have to be recruited — not an easy task, given the stress and potential risks involved in working at Number 10. The cost of all this will run into millions of pounds. The Fixed Penalty Notices that may be imposed at the end of all this might come to a few thousand.
Meanwhile, next door at Number 11, the Chancellor has been put on the spot about at least £5 billion stolen by fraudsters from his pandemic support schemes. After it was reported that the Treasury expects to recover only £1 in every £4 of the losses due to fraud Lord Agnew of Oulton, the minister responsible for counter-fraud, resigned in protest at the largest write-off of taxpayers’ money in history. Lord Agnew blamed “a combination of arrogance, indolence and ignorance” at the heart of Government for the failure to prevent scams or to trace the cash siphoned off by thieves. Banks which administered the emergency “bounce back” loans had no incentive to deter or detect scams because they were given 100 per cent guarantees by the Treasury against losses due to fraud.
Rishi Sunak insists that everything possible will be done to recover the money, but he has still not admitted how much has been lost. He tweeted that in 2021 “we stopped or recovered £2.2 billion in potential fraud from bounce back loans and £743 million of overclaimed furlough grants”. But these figures are dwarfed by the official estimates. They show that some £17 billion of bounce back loans are expected never to be repaid, of which £5 billion has been defrauded. Whatever the Chancellor may say, published HMRC documents show that the Treasury has written off £4.3 billion of the £5.8 billion that is known to have been stolen during the pandemic. The furlough scheme alone lost more than £6 billion due to fraud and error. The final total of money lost to fraud will almost certainly exceed £10 billion.
How much effort is the Government machine as a whole putting into recovering this money? How many police have been working overtime to thwart this gigantic bonanza for the criminal underworld? Is there anybody as senior as Assistant Commissioner Connors dealing with this monstrous fraud, which has probably cost every household in the UK at least £1,000? How many people will be prosecuted for defrauding the public during the pandemic? Rishi Sunak was happy to take credit for the world’s most generous Covid recovery package. Will he now take responsibility for the world’s biggest Covid fraud?
If the Government and the police were serious about fraud, it could learn something from the BBC. In evidence before a select committee yesterday, the Corporation’s Chief Operating Officer Leigh Tavaziva revealed that she expects to double the number of prosecutions for licence fee evasion this year, close to the 2019 level of 122,000. That is a significant proportion of all criminal prosecutions. The sums recovered for the BBC are paltry. Yet this bizarre system grinds on, year after year, with its network of “field agents”.
Ms Tavaziva evidently excels in corporate euphemism: she told MPs that her agents engage in “constructive conversations” on their “home visits” to those who would not or could not pay for their licence. Most of these people are poor; 75 per cent are women. Unlike the Downing Street partygoers, they will all have a criminal record and many will go to prison. The licence fee may fund our enjoyment of the BBC, but it also criminalises thousands and destroys lives.
There is something rotten in the state of Britain when such vast efforts are expended on enforcing a broadcasting poll tax, but minimal efforts are made to prevent or punish fraudsters who steal billions from us all. Our streets have perhaps never been as dangerous, but the police have too few officers and the courts are clogged with pointless prosecutions. Meanwhile, the press and media — especially the BBC — are mesmerised by a huge police investigation into past Coronavirus crimes on a par with parking offences.
Thank goodness there is a little light relief. The SNP leader in Westminster, Ian Blackford, denounced the Marie Antoinettes of Downing Street in his most bombastic manner: “The impending national insurance hike hangs like a guillotine while they eat cake.” Boris Johnson replied instantly: “Well, Mr Speaker, I don’t know who’s been eating more cake.” Cue collapse of stout party in a puff of mixed metaphors and waistcoat buttons. One day, we shall miss that double act.
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