New analysis by MK Labour suggests that the Conservatives’ £4.3bn fraud write-off could fund Milton Keynes Council for 22 years.
Publishing the analysis, Labour’s Rob Middleton, Cabinet Member for Resources, said: “This shameful Conservative government is utterly failing the people of Milton Keynes.
“It’s not just the law-breaking, chaos and deceit of the despicable lockdown parties affair – it’s now clear that the industrial scale of incompetence of this Conservative government is hammering services and forcing tax rises on our community. They are so obsessed with covering up the latest scandal that they can’t do the basics.
“Rishi Sunak has just written off £4.3 billion in fraud. He is letting criminals get away with enough money to fund Milton Keynes for 22 years. At the same time, they are cutting support to hardworking families in our area, and raising taxes. It is genuinely hard to believe any government could be this bad.
“People in Milton Keynes are facing a cost of living crisis, a Conservative government that is so out of touch it believes it is above the law and so incompetent that it watches billions of pounds of our money walk out the door. Milton Keynes deserves so much better.”
The Chancellor has taken to Twitter to respond to these claims as people address their concerns up and down the country, Rishi Sunak wrote: "A lot of people are concerned about fraud in our Covid support measures and they’re absolutely right to be.
"No, I’m not ignoring it, and I'm definitely not ‘writing it off’"
He continued: "Clearly criminals have sought to exploit our support schemes. We’re going to do everything we can to get that money back and go after those who took advantage of the pandemic.
"We've invested over £100m in a Taxpayer Protection Taskforce with 1,265 staff to combat fraud. That's one of the largest and quickest responses to a fraud risk by HMRC ever. 13,000 one-to-one enquiries were opened in 2020/21 and HMRC wrote to 75,000 people."
The chancellor said on Twitter that they are still addressing incorrect claims.
"Last year we stopped or recovered nearly £2.2 billion in potential fraud from Bounce Back Loans and £743m of overclaimed furlough grants.
"It’s worth also remembering the context at the time. Businesses on the brink of collapse needed support quickly, something that many, including Labour, were calling for. We delivered that support in record time with Furlough and our loan schemes saving thousands of jobs.
"Some pointing at covid fraud now are the same people who insisted, at the time, support should not be means-tested at all. Thanks to the action we took we’re now seeing a thriving labour market and the economy has now grown above pre-pandemic levels, faster than predicted."
MKFM reached out to Ben Everitt, MP for North Milton Keynes who replied: "I'm not going to give a quote on this because it's total bollocks."
