Rachel Reeves says Labour will appoint Covid corruption commissioner to help recoup billions lost to fraud

“The fee to the taxpayer of  Covid fraud is estimated at £7.2bn. Each cheque signed by Rishi Sunak…We’ll appoint a Covid corruption commissioner, a success squad of investigators…to take the fraudsters to courtroom…We wish that cash again.”

Labour’s Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves has vowed to nominate a Covid corruption commissioner if the get together wins the subsequent election, to recoup billions of kilos of taxpayers’ cash misplaced to waste, fraud and flawed contracts in the course of the pandemic.

She made the announcement throughout her speech to Labour Occasion convention at present, the place she made struggle on waste a vital a part of her financial plans, pledging lower consultancy spend in authorities by half and appointing a Covid Corruption Commissioner to claw again cash from those that ‘ripped off the taxpayer’.

She stated: “The fee to the taxpayer of  Covid fraud is estimated at £7.2bn. Each cheque signed by Rishi Sunak…We’ll appoint a Covid corruption commissioner, a success squad of investigators…to take the fraudsters to courtroom…We wish that cash again.”

Reeves informed convention: “That cash belongs in our NHS, it belongs in our faculties, it belongs in our police and convention – we would like that cash again”.

She centered on the theme of financial safety after Tory insurance policies brought on financial chaos, saying “change will solely be achieved via an iron [fiscal] self-discipline.”

Reeves took intention on the Tories saying that ‘by no means once more will we enable a repeat of the devastation that Liz Truss and the Tory Occasion have inflicted on household funds’. She informed convention originally of the speech: “We’ll carry our dwelling requirements, make work pay, rebuild our public companies, put money into progress industries in each nook of our nation and collectively we’ll get our future again.”

The Shadow Chancellor additionally unveiled plans to hurry up infrastructure initiatives to “drive progress and funding into the UK”.

She stated Labour would rent 300 new planners throughout the general public sector and re-write planning steerage to hurry up the method. Planning purposes can be fast-tracked for battery factories, laboratories and 5G infrastructure.

Reeves stated a Labour authorities would fee an impartial knowledgeable inquiry into the HS2 high-speed rail venture to study classes for the longer term, including that many extra main spending initiatives are “working over time and over funds”.

Different key insurance policies introduced by Reeves included rising stamp obligation for abroad consumers shopping for property, which might be used to fund housebuilding in addition to slashing the usage of personal jets by ministers.

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Ahead