Fraud chiefs warn Rishi Sunak over risks of millions of pounds being stolen under state covid loans due to lack of transparency

Britain’s leading anti-fraud organisations have accused the government of leaving taxpayers exposed to millions of pounds of potential theft under its coronavirus loan schemes because it has never published a list of those who have received the money.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has issued nearly £35 billion of loans underwritten by taxpayers to help 830,000 small businesses get through the covid crisis.

Many were issued with scant checks on the companies and individuals requesting money. Fraud fighters fear much of it will be stolen by criminals through phoney companies.

In a joint letter to Sunak, the Fraud Advisory Panel, Spotlight on Corruption and Transparency International have urged the Treasury to publish the names of all the recipients, as it has in the past such as with the near-40,000 grants issued under the Innovate UK scheme.

Only by publishing the details of the loans will corporate investigators and the public be able to look out for and expose dubious companies and directors, the letter says.

“The lack of transparency provides an opportunity to defraud the UK,” it says.

“Publication of the information will help to deter and detect crime by enabling the public and companies to check the creditworthiness of customers and suppliers.

“Law enforcement and credit reference agencies will also be able to conduct research and data matching to identify crime using established techniques used by the National Fraud Initiative.”

The NFI is a government exercise that matches databases between the public and private sector to spot frauds on benefits, grants and other areas.

The letter warns that the 750,000 loans done under the Bounceback Loan Scheme for the smallest companies are particularly vulnerable as the applicants effectively certified themselves and were granted the money in 24 hours.

If the details were published on a central, publically-available list, it would be easy to cross-refer them to other databases such as Companies House to search for suspicious activity prior to loan applications. This could include dormant companies suddenly springing into life or new directors being appointed.