PPE was on average 80% more expensive when the government bought it from firms referred through a special “VIP lane” by Conservative ministers, MPs and officials, new information has revealed.
The Good Law Project, which has long investigated PPE deals during the Covid pandemic, said internal government documents showed that the unit price paid for items under VIP runway contracts was up to four times higher than the average.
The organization highlighted one example as the cost of PPE supplied by Meller Designs, a fashion company then co-owned by Tory donor David Meller, who was referred through the VIP track by Michael Gove’s office. Meller Designs has been awarded six PPE supply contracts worth £164 million during the coronavirus pandemic.
In three of these contracts with Meller Designs, the government paid between 1.2 and 2.2 times the average unit price. The average price for medical gowns was £5.87, but the gowns bought from Meller Designs cost £12.64. Around £8.46 million worth of equipment supplied by Meller Designs was later found to be unused in an NHS setting.
A spokesperson for Meller Designs said: “Meller Designs approached the government in March 2020 and offered to provide PPE for the NHS and other essential public services.
“We are extremely proud of the role we played at the height of the Covid-19 crisis and managed to secure more than 100 million items of PPE – including masks, disinfectant, coveralls and gloves direct from the manufacturers – at a time when they were most needed. This PPE has been used in hospitals and by emergency services across the country.
“To respond to the national emergency, we were able to rely on our years of experience in sourcing, testing and quality control of a wide range of products.
“As a company, Meller Designs has been in business for over 100 years, but we can honestly say this was one of the most difficult and important contracts we have ever been asked to respond to and we would like to thank all our colleagues who worked like that. hard to make it happen.”
A department of Health and spokeswoman for social care said its priority throughout the pandemic “was to save lives and we acted quickly to procure PPE at the height of the pandemic, competing in an overheated global market where demand greatly outstrips supply has”.
“Due diligence checks were carried out on all companies and each company was subjected to the same checks,” said the spokesperson.
Separately, Conservative peer Michelle Mone said she was wrong to publicly deny involvement in a PPE firm now under investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA).
Lady Mone released a YouTube documentary in which she and her husband, Douglas Barrowman, launched a fight back “because we did nothing wrong”.
Mone lobbied ministers, including the communities secretary, Michael Gove, and officials for PPE Medpro to win contracts and it went on to secure £200m in deals to supply masks and medical gowns. Her lawyers have since repeatedly denied to the Guardian that she was involved with the firm.
The DHSC is suing PPE Medpro for the full proceeds of the £122 million he paid for the surgical gowns but never used, claiming they are unsafe for use in the NHS. The company is defending the claim.
The NCA conducted an investigation in PPE Medpro since May 2021, ongoing.
Gove said he could not comment on matters under NCA investigation, but insisted it was wrong for anyone to suggest ministers were doing favors for their contacts.
He told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday: “Ministers did not make individual decisions about who should receive contracts … teams of civil servants assessed the worthiness of any contracts put forward.
“The suggestion that ministers are somehow trying to deliberately do favors for or line the pockets of other individuals is totally unjustified because the decisions were only made after a proper coherent and fair procurement process.”
