Lord Agnew, the anti fraud minister in the Treasury who was responsible for efforts to counter fraud, has resigned over the failure to stem fraud over bounce back loans
Addressing the House of Lords on Monday Lord Agnew said he could not defend the government's track record on Covid loan schemes.
He told the chamber that he was unhappy with working between Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy Department (BEIS) and the Treasury and stated that ‘given that I am the minister for counter fraud, it would be somewhat dishonest to stay on in that role if I am incapable of doing it properly'.
He said attempts to recover billions of pounds in fraudulent loans, which were distributed to UK companies during the coronavirus pandemic, had been ‘woefully inadequate’ and accused BEIS and the British Business Bank of making ‘schoolboy errors’, stating that the scheme ‘allowed over 1,000 companies to receive bounce back loans that were not even trading when Covid struck'.
He told
