Boris Johnson’s authorities wasted £10bn of public cash with the flawed buy of private protecting tools throughout the coronavirus pandemic, an official inquiry has concluded.
The Covid-19 inquiry chair, Heather Hallett, additionally criticised the then Conservative authorities’s controversial “VIP lane”, which gave excessive precedence for PPE contracts to corporations with political connections to the Tories.
Probably the most high-profile scandal of the VIP lane contracts was PPE Medpro, a newly fashioned firm linked to the then Conservative peer Michelle Mone, which was awarded two contracts value £203m after Mone first approached Michael Gove, the then Cupboard Workplace minister, in Might 2020.
The inquiry has heard proof regarding PPE Medpro, and Woman Hallett, a former courtroom of enchantment choose, has reached her conclusions, however they aren’t but being printed due to a long-running investigation by the Nationwide Crime Company into the procurement of the contracts. Hallett’s findings will solely be printed after the conclusion of any prison proceedings.
Hallett mentioned in her report: “The ‘excessive precedence lane’, often known as the ‘VIP lane’, was a misguided try to provide precedence to probably the most credible gives,” and that it “embedded unfairness” within the procurement. “Some suppliers acquired beneficial remedy as a result of they’d connections to authorities,” she discovered, “undermining public belief at a second when it was wanted most.”
The waste of PPE procured because the disaster hit – primarily from producers in China – was extensively reported inside months, because it piled up and commenced to be disposed of. “The UK entered the pandemic with an insufficient stockpile of PPE and plans that had by no means been stress-tested,” Hallett mentioned.
“The waste of public cash was huge and will have been averted. Of roughly £14.9bn spent on PPE, practically two-thirds – virtually £10bn – was wasted.”
Hallett’s report says £4.2bn was paid by the federal government on “VIP lane” PPE contracts.
Throughout the hearings on procurement in March 2025, Pete Weatherby KC, a lawyer for Covid Bereaved Households for Justice (CBFFJ), which represents about 7,000 individuals whose relations died throughout the pandemic, known as for “scrutiny as as to if cronyism, unfair benefit and corruption allowed chancers to make fabulous income on the expense of all of us, the bereaved, the important thing staff”.
The then well being secretary, Matt Hancock, and different ministers defended the VIP lane on the inquiry, arguing it enabled the federal government to prioritise credible gives.
Theodore Agnew, a Cupboard Workplace minister on the time, informed the inquiry it was “bollocks” to counsel the VIP lane was “some type of plan by rightwing individuals attempting to complement themselves”.
Hallett concluded that the inquiry “has not recognized cronyism or corruption on the a part of ministers and officers in ultimate contracting selections”. However, she mentioned: “The ‘excessive precedence’ lane mustn’t have been established and should not be repeated.”
Hallett mentioned: “Though it was not supposed, the system was inherently biased in the direction of these with connections to the UK authorities. This heightened the danger of abuse.”
In a damning report, Hallett discovered the nation’s stockpile of PPE and different very important healthcare tools was insufficient initially of the pandemic, and medical doctors, healthcare and care staff couldn’t defend themselves or these for whom they had been caring from an infection.
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Members of the CBFFJ informed the inquiry they believed insufficient PPE and tools was an element of their relations’ contracting Covid and dying. Upfront of the report, the group mentioned of the federal government’s procurement failures and the VIP lane: “For bereaved households, these weren’t summary failures of administration. Many imagine their family members died, a minimum of partly, as a result of well being and care providers lacked the tools, provides and programs wanted to maintain sufferers and employees protected.
“What makes these failures even more durable to bear is that some well-connected people and corporations had been making huge income from these identical failures.”
Hallett agreed that sufferers and care house residents had been put in danger within the deadliest early interval of the pandemic, concluding that the UK’s PPE stockpile was “in a deadly state” and the UK was “merely not able to compete” within the frantic international rush to purchase healthcare tools, though she praised the general public, companies and the UK’s life sciences and superior manufacturing sectors for rallying “enthusiastically” to assist.
“Because the pandemic worsened, many medical doctors, nurses and care sector employees labored with out satisfactory PPE or ample healthcare tools reminiscent of ventilators,” she mentioned. “This left them unable to correctly defend themselves, or these of their care, from harmful an infection.”
In her report, Hallett made 11 suggestions for guaranteeing that the rushed scramble for very important healthcare tools, huge waste of public cash, and authorities procurement favouring politically linked corporations weren’t repeated in any future pandemic.
The suggestions included investing in British superior manufacturing, enhancing pandemic stockpile administration, “radically overhauling” the mandatory provide chain and emergency procurement programs, and “enhancing transparency, governance and accountability in emergency procurement, in order that the general public might be assured that cash is being spent with propriety and equity”.
Hallett concluded: “A greater ready emergency procurement system will cut back the price of acquiring important provides and save lives.”
