NAO report warns of alarming levels of fraud and defaults on Bounce Back loans – but how much is too much?

Default rates could reach 60 per cent through fraudulent applications or just businesses going bust – at a cost of billions of pounds to the taxpayer, writes James Moore

The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has pumped billions of pounds into pandemic Britain's economy (PA)

Skilled with numbers? Good at filling out forms? No moral compass? Covid-ravaged Britain has afforded you the opportunity to make a fortune.

The downside of the government’s understandable desire to buttress the economy by throwing money around like confetti is that a substantial proportion of it will have found its way into the hands of white-collar crooks, as a report published this morning by the National Audit Office (NAO) makes abundantly clear.  

It covers the government’s Bounce Back Loan Scheme, which was hastily designed to get financial support out to small businesses and prevent a mass collapse of the sector in the midst of the pandemic.