Sunday 30 May 2021

Money for old rope

Jolyon Maugham at The Good Law Project (GLP) has been digging away at the PPE scandal for months and has revealed the chaotic, corrupt mess behind many of the single bidder contracts. Slowly and inexorably, the scandal is lapping closer and closer to ministers. The procurement process is supposed to be independent but it now appears that Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, got involved to help someone who had a connection with her, to receive a £28.8m contract. This should be shocking but I don't suppose anybody will raise an eyebrow. 

A company called Pharmaceuticals Direct Limited was awarded a contract for £28,8 million after what GLP call the "direct intervention" of Priti Patel. PDL were also awarded a second £102.6 million contract. Two "middle-men" were involved.  Samir Jassal, a well-connected figure within the Tory Party. He was apparently an adviser in No.10 during David Cameron’s premiership, has met Boris Johnson, with the last meeting held in October 2020 and has worked with Priti Patel and Zac Goldsmith. He has also donated £4,000 to the Conservative Party in recent years.

The other was Surbjit Shergill, who seemed to be on first name terms with Munira Mirza, an adviser to Boris Johnson. He emails her and gets a reply in 11 minutes, with her addressing him as Surbjit. Afterwards, he seems to have billed PDL over £16m for his "services."  Nice work for a few emails, eh?

It's not clear what the motives of Patel and Mirza were for helping these people.

You can read all about it on the GLP website HERE and HERE.

As if that wasn't bad enough, it seems that GLP have evidence that legitimate bidders who were close to receiving an order from the DHSC, lost out to what they say were “politically connected/VIP bidders” with a “strong suspicion Government insiders were passing details of contracts to their preferred bidders.”

For example, the £102.6m contract (for “Meixin 2016v” FFP3 face masks) was concluded on 7 July – and only after Cabinet Office officials overruled objections that it was overpriced by £50m. But several days earlier, on 2 July, another bidder who had passed technical assurance – and had been sent a draft contract by DHSC to supply the same model “Meixin 2016v” at the exact same time. 

The first bidders were then told the government had already bought enough FFP3 face masks and didn't need any more.  But the Accounting Officer (the ultimate decision maker) was told four days later on 6 July that there was a "desperate shortage" of the very same masks with “stock-out" expected in mid July!

Now listen to this:

"The Accounting Officer was not told of the existence of the alternative supplier. And nor was the alternative supplier asked to beat the price the Cabinet Office was pushing to be paid to PDL.

"The alternative supplier complained vigorously to DHSC that, as soon as the MX2016vs it was offering passed NHS technical triage, the manufacturer received an alternative approach for the same product from an unnamed different UK company. Technical triage was passed just a few days before Mr Shergill supposedly emailed his quotation on 26 June." 

This would be shocking for a commercial company, if not actually illegal it's certainly unethical, but for a government department and a £100 million contract it looks absolutely terrible.

Heads should roll but don't hold your breath.

The Geidt Report

Lord Geidt should stop thinking his report has put a lid on wallpaper gate. Angela Rayner, Labour's deputy leader has written to him posing a series of questions about how he managed to exonerate the prime minister. She says the report as "simoply not believable"

In the letter to Geidt, Rayner said it appears the details of the interests Johnson had have not been published because they are “no longer current”, but the only reason for that was because the Prime Minister didn't declare it!!  She said it "cannot therefore be used as a justification to not publish this interest."

If that is regarded as a legitimate escape clause, all any MP needs to do is not publish any embarrassing interest and hope it doesn't come out for a few months so it isn't current any more.  She then asks:

"Will you now publish this interest, all the details relating to this interest and these payments, and any correspondence related to this interest and these payments immediately?"

Rayner said that it was “staggering” and "frankly scarcely believable that the Prime Minister apparently had no idea about who was funding work that cost tens or even thousands of pounds."

And of course she's right.

I think Johnson's own behaviour, in flouting rules and conventions has been taken as a green light for ministers to do the same. How could he dismiss someone for a misdemeanour that he himself was guilty of - and probably worse?

I dare say he won’t publish details of the payments but if he thinks that is the end of the matter, he should think again.

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