Names of firms given huge Covid loans will be secret

Lord Agnew resigned at the dispatch box in the Lords last month over what he described as a series of schoolboy errors in combating fraud. Photograph: PA

The names of thousands of companies which benefited from billions of pounds of Covid-19 loans schemes are to be kept confidential under new government rules to only publish state subsidies of £500,000 or more.

The higher threshold has been brought in after Brexit despite warnings that it may hamper the fight against fraudsters believed to have plundered billions from the schemes. The loan schemes have been called a “bonanza for fraudsters”.