The UK's main opposition Labour Party has announced that it will appoint a "COVID corruption commissioner" to track down billions of pounds lost to fraud and waste during the pandemic, if it wins power.
Labour economy spokeswoman Rachel Reeves says the commissioner will bring together tax officials, fraud investigators and law enforcement officers will track down an estimated £7.2 billion (€8.3 billion) in lost public money spent on grants and contracts related to COVID-19.
The Labour Party says the Conservative government has been "embarrassed" by the scale of the losses and is "doing nothing to get that money back."
The announcement comes as Labour is trying to cement its front-runner status in opinion polls ahead of an election due in 2024. The party is running 15 or more points ahead of the governing Conservatives in multiple opinion polls, as the country endures a sluggish economy and a cost-of-living crisis.
Labour is trying to show it can provide an alternative to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservatives, who have been in power since 2010. The party is promising to get the economy growing faster to fund public services, build 1.5 million homes to ease Britain's chronic housing crisis, reform an "antiquated" planning system, and repair the creaking, overburdened state-funded National Health Service.
Leader Keir Starmer has steered the social democratic party back toward the political middle-ground after the divisive tenure of predecessor Jeremy Corbyn.
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