MICHAEL Gove has insisted the UK wasting £10 billion of taxpayers’ money on PPE during the Covid pandemic was an “honest error” as he defended the "VIP lane".
As part of the official inquiry into the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, Baroness Heather Hallett criticised the “vast” waste in pandemic procurement, amounting to £9.9bn – two-thirds of the £14.9bn the UK and devolved governments spent on PPE.
She also criticised the controversial “VIP lane”, which prioritised offers of PPE from those with political connections, as a “misguided” and “unfair” process that undermined public confidence in procurement. She also stressed evidence pointed to VIP lane PPE being more expensive.
But when grilled about this on Channel 4 News, Gove – who was the lead minister in the cabinet for much of the pandemic – said this waste of money was an honest mistake, and refused to apologise.
Asked if the public deserved an apology, he said: “Well, I certainly think it’s the case that mistakes were made in the procurement of PPE, but it’s important to stress these were honest errors.
“It was the case that across the Western world at that time, countries were found to be ill-prepared for the nature of the pandemic and in almost every other European nation like the UK, we simply didn’t have enough PPE.
“It is the case that in our urgency and desire to make sure people at the front line got the equipment they needed that there was slack over ordering and the cost of that was greater than it should have been.”
He insisted “appropriate lessons” had been learned, but presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy went on to ask if the government had actually been guilty of “incompetence”, pointing to how it spent more on VIP lane PPE than non-VIP lane.
Gove insisted VIP lane PPE was not more expensive than PPE which was sourced elsewhere, but Hallet had said “the evidence suggests that high priority lane contracts were more expensive”.
Gove then argued the report was “wrong” as he defended the VIP lane.
“While some items were more expensive in the VIP lane, other items were cheaper,” he said.
“The VIP was set up by officials, manned by officials, and within the inquiry report Heather Hallet states clearly there is no evidence of corruption or criminality or cronyism on the part of ministers or officials.”
Hallett did describe the VIP lane, however, as “a misguided attempt at prioritisation that embedded unfairness in emergency procurement” that saw offers from politically-connected individuals more likely to receive a contract than others.
“I don’t believe the evidence justifies that,” Gove went on.
“The high priority lane was dealing with those offers that came from, in an overwhelming number of cases, the most credible sources and the evidence presented to the inquiry showed that wherever any recommendation came from, a rigorous process was followed in order to ensure the offers that were made came from reputable sources who were capable of providing PPE.”
The report found that, of the 32 people who referred successful offers to the VIP lane, 15 had a connection with the Conservative Party and none came from any other party, although politicians from other parties were referred to it.
Hallett said her inquiry had found “no evidence of cronyism or corruption on the part of ministers or officials in the final decision of whether to award or reject a contract”, but noted the system was “inherently biased towards those with connections to the UK government”.
She said: “This heightened the risk of abuse. It damaged the reputation of those involved in procurement during the pandemic and undermined public trust in the UK government’s emergency procurement system, in the UK government itself and in its response to the pandemic.
“The High Priority Lane should not be repeated.”
During the inquiry’s investigation into procurement, Lady Hallett also heard evidence on PPE Medpro, which was ordered to repay £148 million to the Government last year after the High Court found it had breached a contract to supply millions of surgical gowns.
But Tuesday’s report did not include her findings on Medpro due to an ongoing National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation into the firm, which is linked to Conservative peer Baroness Michelle Mone via her husband Doug Barrowman.
Both Lady Mone, 54, and Barrowman, 61, deny wrongdoing.
The inquiry has said it will release its findings on Medpro once any criminal proceedings had concluded.
