The scramble to buy PPE during the pandemic saw the UK waste almost £10 billion of taxpayers’ money, the official inquiry into the handling of Covid-19 has found.
Report findings
In the fifth report of her inquiry, Baroness Heather Hallett criticised the “vast” waste in pandemic procurement, amounting to £9.9 billion – two-thirds of the £14.9 billion 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. However, she said there was “no evidence of cronyism or corruption” by ministers or officials when awarding contracts.
Lady Hallett said: “The waste of taxpayers’ money was vast. The public must be able to trust that their money is being spent with propriety, fairness and transparency. Public confidence – so important in an emergency – was undermined by failures in procurement.”
Underprepared for pandemic
In her report, Lady Hallett found the UK was underprepared for the pandemic, with existing stockpiles of PPE “in a perilous state”, with large quantities of expired equipment. She found only a third of the masks in England’s pre-pandemic stockpile were usable, while Scotland had no supplies of the top-level FFP3 masks needed by healthcare professionals.
The report describes a procurement system working under “immense pressure”, with no effective system for triaging offers of PPE. That system was “deluged” with offers after Boris Johnson and then-health secretary Matt Hancock issued a “call to arms” for PPE in April 2020. Officials told the inquiry the call to arms had “made matters worse”, with the procurement system receiving 25,000 offers over 15 weeks, including 300 offers a day at some points.
VIP lane criticised
Against that background, officials established a “high priority” or “VIP” lane that prioritised offers that had been referred by politicians, healthcare leaders and others. Lady Hallett described the VIP lane 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. She said contracts awarded through the VIP lane were “more expensive” and had more “contract performance issues” than those awarded through the normal route.
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. Lady 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.”
Medpro and fraud
The report did not include Lady Hallett’s findings on Medpro – the firm linked to Baroness Michelle Mone and her husband Doug Barrowman – due to an ongoing National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation. 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. Both Lady Mone and Mr Barrowman deny wrongdoing. The inquiry has said it will release its findings on Medpro once any criminal proceedings had concluded.
Discussing fraud in procurement more widely, the inquiry found the pace of procurement reduced the amount of time available for due diligence – in some cases to just four hours – and thus increased the risk of fraud. The inquiry heard that the UK Government estimated £256 million was lost to fraud relating to PPE procurement. But it also found that the investigation into PPE Medpro is the only criminal process relating to alleged PPE procurement fraud in the whole of the UK. The NCA probe into Medpro remains ongoing, and in June 2024, the agency said an unnamed 46-year-old man from Barnet, north London, had been arrested as part of the investigation. No criminal charges have been brought.
