Britain’s main opposition Labor Party says if it wins power, it will appoint a “Covid Corruption Commissioner” to recover billions of dollars lost to fraud and waste during the pandemic.
LIVERPOOL, England — Britain’s main opposition Labor Party says if it wins power, it will appoint a “COVID corruption commissioner” to recoup some of the billions lost to fraud and waste during the pandemic.
Labor economy spokeswoman Rachel Reeves is due to outline the plan in a speech at the party’s annual conference on Monday. She says commissioners will bring together tax authorities, fraud investigators and law enforcement officials to trace an estimated 7.2 billion pounds ($8.8 billion) in public money spent on COVID-19-related grants and contracts .
Reeves told the BBC that the Conservative government was “embarrassed” by the scale of the deficit and was “doing nothing to get that money back.”
A multi-year public inquiry is examining Britain’s handling of the pandemic, which has killed more than 200,000 people in the country.
Reeves’ announcement came during a four-day conference in Liverpool, where Labor is trying to consolidate its leading position in opinion polls ahead of an election in 2024.
The party is leading the ruling Conservatives by 15 or more points in many opinion polls, as Britain grapples with a sluggish economy and a cost-of-living crisis driven by the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the economic disruption following Britain’s exit. European Union.
Labor is trying to show it can provide an alternative to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party, which has been in power since 2010. But the opposition party is wary of promising large public spending increases that would require tax increases.
Instead, the party says it will rapidly grow the economy to finance public services. It is promising to build 1.5 million homes to ease Britain’s chronic housing crisis, reform the “outdated” planning system, which it says is holding back infrastructure improvements, and Will overhaul the creaking, overburdened state-funded National Health Service.
Leader Keir Starmer has moved the social democratic party back toward a political middle-ground after the divisive tenure of predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, a staunch socialist who advocated the nationalization of key industries and infrastructure. Corbyn resigned in 2019 after Labor suffered its worst election defeat in almost a century.
In a sign of the improvement in Labour’s fortunes, the party says more than 200 officials are attending a business forum at its conference on Monday. For years, businesses were wary of the party, which had its roots in the trade union movement, and favored the Conservatives. But recent economic and political turmoil has forced many to think again.