- 21 hours ago
An expose of the obscene corruption surrounding the award of PPE contracts in the UK during the COVID pandemic.
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00:00:00The Covid pandemic cost the lives of over 200,000 people in the UK
00:00:09OK, ready, steady, go
00:00:10and took a terrible toll on millions more
00:00:13Sorry
00:00:14But the way the government gave out contracts for PPE and testing
00:00:18meant that for a select few, the story was very different
00:00:23Some people could make life-enhancing amounts of money
00:00:27by making a profit on really quite basic PPE
00:00:31Michelle Moan has become notorious for the PPE contracts she was involved with
00:00:36That cash is not my cash, it's not my children's cash
00:00:41But others made far more from the taxpayer
00:00:45The Michelle Moan case is just the tip of the iceberg
00:00:48There are far more important cases that we have yet properly to look at
00:00:53This is the untold story of how the government went from having almost no stocks of PPE
00:00:58to having more than could ever possibly be used
00:01:02We're talking about probably the biggest government misspending scandal in the UK of all time
00:01:06And the true scale of this multi-billion pound scandal is only now coming to light
00:01:11We spent well over a billion pounds storing it
00:01:14and we're spending millions of pounds incinerating it
00:01:17We investigate how some companies with little or no track record in supplying PPE or medical tests
00:01:24were given massive contracts and made a killing from Covid
00:01:28The government essentially created a system for people with political connections
00:01:32to be able to profit from government contracts
00:01:36Very few companies in British history have made more money more quickly
00:01:42Now largely unnoticed, the UK's most costly public inquiry is set to continue for at least another year
00:01:51We didn't know at the time what we needed to do
00:01:56But with access to hundreds of previously secret documents, emails and records
00:02:01we ask who was responsible
00:02:03For the most part politicians have not really had to face any accountability for their role in this
00:02:11There are still some very serious questions to answer
00:02:15for the government of the day
00:02:17for the officials leading the procurement
00:02:20and for those who took advantage
00:02:22who made their millions living very lavish lifestyles
00:02:25Coronavirus is the biggest threat this country has faced for decades
00:02:43I urge you to stay at home, protect our NHS and save lives
00:02:49On the 23rd of March 2020, the country went into lockdown
00:02:55The UK was woefully unprepared for the pandemic
00:02:59No hospital was ready in the UK
00:03:01because we hadn't adequately prepared stockpiles of personal protective equipment
00:03:07Newspapers and TV quickly filled with images of doctors and nurses
00:03:12having to make their own PPE out of bin bags
00:03:15This way, this way, this way, this way
00:03:18At the beginning, the shortages of PPE were absolutely terrifying
00:03:22The scale of the dying was like nothing any of us had ever experienced before
00:03:29There was a desperate scramble for PPE
00:03:34and every hospital started rationing
00:03:38There is a massive effort going on to ensure that we have adequate supplies of PPE equipment
00:03:46not just now, but throughout the outbreak
00:03:49There is a huge international demand for PPE
00:03:52and a global squeeze on supply
00:03:54With the world scrambling to buy PPE
00:03:57and prices going up fast
00:03:59the existing NHS procurement team was struggling
00:04:02Boris Johnson set up a new procurement unit run by Matt Hancock's Department of Health
00:04:08with many of its staff coming from Michael Gove's Cabinet Office
00:04:12Our PPE sourcing unit is securing new supply lines from across the world
00:04:17The government put out public appeals to help source PPE from new suppliers
00:04:22and the normal tender and competition rules were suspended
00:04:25Under pressure to respond quickly
00:04:28a secret high-priority VIP lane was also set up by civil servants
00:04:33to deal with credible offers coming via ministers, MPs or senior officials
00:04:39I am determined, determined
00:04:42to get people the PPE that they need
00:04:44We started to look at who was getting a lot of this work
00:04:48who was supplying the PPE
00:04:50When you looked at those companies you thought, who on earth are they?
00:04:53Contracts worth hundreds and hundreds of millions of pounds
00:04:56Vast sums of money were being handed to companies
00:05:01with little or no experience providing PPE
00:05:03or companies that had only just been established
00:05:05It was all these weird and wonderful companies that had come from nowhere
00:05:10Some of these companies had other relevant experience
00:05:15but among the unlikely businesses fast-tracked to receive public money were
00:05:19A brand new company linked to a bra manufacturer getting contracts for £203 million
00:05:25A dog food manufacturer brokering contracts for £258 million
00:05:30And an office design company getting contracts for £679 million
00:05:35Whenever you see contracts going to strange suppliers
00:05:41The immediate question you ask yourself is, why?
00:05:45We started to dig into who those suppliers of PPE really were
00:05:50And we found many of these contracts turned out to have important political connections
00:05:58One of these, PPE MedPro, was owned by Doug Barrowman
00:06:03Husband of Baroness Michelle Moan
00:06:05A Conservative peer best known for her Ultimo lingerie empire
00:06:09MedPro, set up during the first lockdown
00:06:12Is perhaps the most notorious of the brand new PPE companies
00:06:16But there were many others
00:06:18Companies with no previous experience in providing PPE
00:06:22But with a political connection
00:06:24Mopping up millions of pounds worth of contracts
00:06:27It couldn't just be a coincidence
00:06:29Then in October 2020
00:06:33A whistleblower inside government
00:06:35leaked damning evidence to the campaign group Good Law Project
00:06:39We were sent a bunch of documents
00:06:41And those documents described the existence of what they referred to as a VIP loan
00:06:49If you were a VIP, your contract was sent to a special team for special handling
00:06:56One of the documents talks about high profile contacts requiring a rapid response
00:07:04We expected to find political connections
00:07:06And we did find political connections
00:07:08What we didn't expect was that government would just set it out nakedly on the page
00:07:12Special treatment for very important people
00:07:16John was working in the Department of Health's PPE procurement team at the time
00:07:26We became aware of the VIP lane through this big database
00:07:30Showing all the details of the companies
00:07:32What they're actually going to be able to sell
00:07:36What prices they were going to be able to do
00:07:38Who were the people in charge
00:07:40And then there was a little tick box there that said
00:07:43VIP tick yes or no
00:07:50If the high priority lane had been for PPE experts
00:07:53This would have been understandable
00:07:55But it became clear that wasn't relevant
00:07:58An email sent to ministerial offices revealed that the VIP lane, as it was also called
00:08:03Was for those with the right connections
00:08:05The deputy director of the PPE unit says specifically in one email
00:08:09VIP route is facing a backlog and is for MPs who can make life painful and shout loudly
00:08:17The vast majority of others had to go through the public online portal
00:08:21Or the existing NHS supply chain
00:08:23But for Baroness Mohn these routes weren't needed
00:08:27It became apparent that Michelle Mohn had been lobbying very intensively for PPE Medpro to get these contracts
00:08:38She'd contacted Michael Gove trying to make sure that PPE Medpro got a buy-in
00:08:44He said that she should contact this other Conservative member of the House of Lords called Lord Agnew
00:08:52Theodore Agnew is a former Tory donor and life peer
00:08:57In 2020, as Covid first hit the UK
00:09:00He came to the Cabinet Office to work on sourcing ventilators under Michael Gove
00:09:05So she directly contacted Lord Agnew
00:09:09Copying in Michael Gove
00:09:11Offering to supply PPE
00:09:13Dear Theodore
00:09:15I hope this email finds you well
00:09:17Michael Gove has asked me to urgently contact you
00:09:20Michelle
00:09:22Thank you for your kind offer
00:09:24I am forwarding this into the appropriate PPE workstream with the Department of Health
00:09:29Lord Agnew's Private Secretary put Mohn's PPE Medpro offer onto the VIP lane
00:09:35And just 18 days after it was created
00:09:38The company got its first contract
00:09:40For £81 million
00:09:42A month later
00:09:44It got a further contract
00:09:46For £122 million
00:09:48In total, over £200 million
00:09:50Despite having no previous experience of sourcing PPE
00:10:00But others with connections to the Conservative Party
00:10:03Were getting even bigger contracts
00:10:05And once again
00:10:06Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove was involved
00:10:10We call it
00:10:11Think, Create, Make
00:10:14Unispace is an Australian company
00:10:16Its main business was office design
00:10:20It wasn't a health equipment company at all
00:10:23But it was one of these companies that stepped in when the pandemic offered an opportunity
00:10:28The founders of Unispace, Gareth and Charles Hales
00:10:33Are the sons of Bruce Hales
00:10:35He is the global leader of the Plymouth Brethren
00:10:38Which has links with the Conservative Party
00:10:40The Plymouth Brethren are a Christian sect
00:10:43With about 50,000 members around the globe
00:10:46Just one day after the country went into lockdown on the 24th of March
00:10:51The founders of Unispace reached out to Michael Gove
00:10:54Gove's office passed the offer on to Hancock's office
00:10:58And in April Unispace went on to the VIP lane
00:11:01And within a month
00:11:03This company with no previous experience of providing PPE
00:11:06Was awarded their first contract worth £239 million
00:11:11Michael Gove says he was not involved in making decisions about contracts
00:11:15And the government said that ministers and MPs
00:11:18Simply forwarded promising offers to civil servants
00:11:21Following Gove's introduction
00:11:25Unispace went on to get a total of £679 million worth of PPE contracts
00:11:31The most any single company obtained
00:11:34In all, at least 52 companies were awarded contracts via the High Priority Lane
00:11:40Worth a total of £4.2 billion
00:11:44Another company that benefited is SG Recruitment
00:11:51It's a real essential VIP lane story
00:11:55Because we're talking about very, very high up Tory grandee
00:12:01Very well connected people
00:12:04A shareholder and director of their Jersey-based parent company
00:12:08Was Peter Selwyn Gummer
00:12:10Lord Chadlington
00:12:11Another Tory grandee
00:12:13He was a very, very well connected
00:12:15Senior Conservative member of the House of Lords
00:12:19He's quite close to Davy Cameron
00:12:21Lord Chadlington texted Cameron
00:12:25Who put him in touch with his old friend from Oxford
00:12:28Andrew Feldman
00:12:30Lord Feldman, a former Tory chairman
00:12:35Had been brought into the Department of Health
00:12:37To advise on PPE procurement
00:12:39He referred SG Recruitment onto the High Priority Lane
00:12:43And within a week they've got the first contract
00:12:46Which was worth £24 million
00:12:48A month later, despite being a small loss-making healthcare recruitment agency
00:12:54With no previous experience providing PPE
00:12:57The company was given a second contract
00:13:00Worth a further £26 million
00:13:02A total of £50 million in a matter of weeks
00:13:06There's absolutely no doubt that being in this lane
00:13:10Gave the suppliers in it
00:13:13You know, a very, very big leg up
00:13:16Into getting these contracts
00:13:18The Conservative government later said
00:13:20The High Priority Lane was open to referrals
00:13:22From politicians of all parties
00:13:25But almost half the VIPs who went on to get contracts
00:13:28Were referred or passed on to the officials
00:13:31By Tory MPs or ministers
00:13:34According to the government's VIP list
00:13:36Not a single company referred by politicians
00:13:38From any other party was given a contract
00:13:41And VIPs were ten times more likely to get a contract
00:13:45Than those who went through the normal Department of Health channels
00:13:49You were seeing all these VIPs getting contracts
00:13:53All the other companies that I was dealing with
00:13:55Didn't get any contracts at all
00:13:57It was very frustrating
00:13:59Because you've done a lot of the background work
00:14:01Taking the time to find out about the companies
00:14:04Seeing who their actual manufacturer was
00:14:07So that we could check that the manufacturer
00:14:09Had the capability of producing as many items as they said
00:14:13And then to always find out that none of your deals have gone through
00:14:17The VIP lane was obviously the premiership
00:14:21And all the rest of the suppliers were in the second division
00:14:24The Conservative government later said
00:14:28VIPs may have been more successful in winning contracts
00:14:31Because their offers were more promising
00:14:33And the VIP lane was better resourced
00:14:37Since the start of the crisis
00:14:39We've now delivered over a billion items of PPE
00:14:42We've had 8,331 offers of PPE equipment
00:14:47And we're investigating each and every one of those many leads
00:14:51There's also evidence from government emails
00:14:54That because civil servants felt they had to prioritise VIPs
00:14:57Long established PPE companies
00:15:00Without the right political contacts
00:15:02Were getting sidelined
00:15:04Civil servants had real concerns about it
00:15:07And that, you know, really good leads
00:15:09Could actually be being drowned out in the process
00:15:12VIP escalation is obstructing progress
00:15:15Of more viable opportunities for larger, scalable manufacturers
00:15:19The company sent three quarters of a million PPE kits to Sierra Leone
00:15:33During the Ebola epidemic
00:15:35But when the Covid pandemic arrived
00:15:38Nobody was returning their calls
00:15:40Our team in China made sure we had access to product
00:15:43Our logistics team chartered 10 jumbo jets
00:15:46And we filled the shed
00:15:48It was ready to go
00:15:49We had products on the ground
00:15:50We had expertise ready to be deployed
00:15:52We used the government portals
00:15:54We used the website
00:15:55We used all of our existing contacts
00:15:57There would literally be 50 or 60 attempts every day
00:16:01To break through the central government
00:16:03And we were coming up against a closed door every single time
00:16:06And I couldn't understand why anyone in charge
00:16:11Would choose to ignore the expertise available on tap
00:16:14So yeah, I was angry, I was frustrated
00:16:17But I'm not alone in being disappointed
00:16:19Because the entire safety industry was not mobilised
00:16:21As the way it should have been
00:16:23While some VIPs with no PPE experience at all
00:16:28Were getting contracts for hundreds of millions in a matter of days
00:16:32It took two months before Arco was finally asked to supply the Department of Health
00:16:37With £9 million worth of face masks
00:16:40In the meantime, the company managed to bypass central government
00:16:44And supply NHS trusts direct
00:16:47I was speaking to chief medical officers ringing me in tears
00:16:52We had to do something
00:16:54So we went round the outside
00:16:55We supplied all 291 NHS trusts in the UK
00:16:59We dealt with them on a direct basis
00:17:01No government contracts, just us and the individual trusts
00:17:05And actually no guarantee we were going to get paid
00:17:08But it was the right thing to do
00:17:09And I'd do it again
00:17:10But it wasn't just proven suppliers who lost out
00:17:16Critics say it was also a disaster for the taxpayer
00:17:20Whilst many offers were well-intentioned
00:17:23There are concerns about others
00:17:25Normally we have really robust processes
00:17:28For awarding contracts to private companies
00:17:30Contracts had to be put out for tender
00:17:32And what happened during the pandemic
00:17:34Was that those processes were essentially ripped up and thrown in the bin
00:17:39The government used emergency procurement measures
00:17:43To just directly award contracts to companies
00:17:46Now there was no competition
00:17:48Which gave these new businesses
00:17:50New businesses or often existing businesses
00:17:53Opportunity to inflate their prices
00:17:56And make huge profits
00:17:59The pandemic essentially became a gold rush
00:18:02For some business people
00:18:07Whilst for most of us
00:18:10The pandemic was a kind of national tragedy
00:18:13For a few politically connected people
00:18:17This was a once in a generation opportunity
00:18:21To make vast fortunes at public expense
00:18:30Almost two years after the first contracts were signed
00:18:33A whistleblower sent Goodlaw Project
00:18:35Spreadsheets of prices paid for PPE by the government
00:18:39So they could compare VIP prices
00:18:41With average prices across the pandemic
00:18:44A very angry civil servant
00:18:48Furious at what he'd seen
00:18:50Leaked to us a whole bunch of internal government spreadsheets
00:18:53And if you look at those spreadsheets
00:18:55You can see that VIP suppliers were paid
00:18:58On average 80% more
00:19:01Than suppliers who came through the normal channels
00:19:06One deal secured by Ianda Capital
00:19:11Raises questions about the prices paid
00:19:14Ianda is an investment company
00:19:16That was fast tracked onto the high priority lane
00:19:19Following an introduction by Andrew Mills
00:19:22He was made an advisor to the board of trade
00:19:24By then trade secretary Sir Liam Fox
00:19:27And he was also an advisor to the board of Ianda Capital
00:19:30I knew he had a lot of experience dealing with the NHS
00:19:35He and I said look Andrew could you make a few calls
00:19:40And find out how the process works
00:19:43Inside Whitehall officials quickly made clear
00:19:46This was a VIP case
00:19:48Though both the company and Andrew Mills
00:19:50Say they knew nothing about this
00:19:52Ianda had no experience supplying medical equipment
00:19:55But Mills had previously been involved in managing health procurement
00:19:58And 14 days after his introduction
00:20:01Ianda was given a contract for face and respirator masks worth $252 million
00:20:07Civil servants did raise concerns about the Ianda Capital bid
00:20:10They thought the price was too high
00:20:12But despite that Ianda Capital secured their contract anyway
00:20:15More senior staff later said that though they believed the face masks were marginally more expensive
00:20:22Than the government's benchmark average price at the time
00:20:26The more important respirator masks were cheaper
00:20:29So the deal securing over 200 million masks was signed off
00:20:33The government's benchmark was based on the average price paid in the previous two weeks
00:20:39But new analysis applying that benchmark formula to the leaked spreadsheets
00:20:44Suggests a face mask average of 36p when Ianda was paid 59p
00:20:50And for respirator masks the benchmark comes out as £1.28
00:20:55Compared to Ianda's price of £3.10
00:21:00Ianda and Mills dispute these comparisons
00:21:03Saying their prices were within the benchmark range used by the government
00:21:07They say prices were volatile and increasing
00:21:09And their price was a good fixed price that secured three months' supply
00:21:16In the end Andrew Mills' own company was paid £32 million
00:21:20He says profits were in line with the risks he took and market rates
00:21:26Andrew Mills is probably one of the richest beneficiaries of the pandemic
00:21:32In the shortest space of time
00:21:37There's also evidence that PPE MedPro
00:21:39The company linked to Michelle Moan
00:21:41Made a very significant margin on their gowns contract
00:21:44I was given by a source the actual contracts
00:21:49From the Chinese factory for the gowns
00:21:52That the government paid £122 million for
00:21:55And they showed that they'd cost them £46 million to buy from the factory
00:22:02The company had to pay to buy the PPE
00:22:04So there was a risk involved
00:22:06But the profit margins were also impressive
00:22:10You know MedPro made a return on its investment of about
00:22:14Realistically about 30%
00:22:17I was leaked a document that was produced by HSBC Bank
00:22:22As part essentially of an internal investigation
00:22:26That showed that at least £65 million had been paid to Doug Barrowman's accounts in the Isle of Man
00:22:32And that he'd transferred from that £29 million to an offshore trust
00:22:37That was set up for the benefit of Michelle Moan and her three adult children
00:22:42I didn't receive that cash
00:22:45That cash is not my cash
00:22:47That cash is my husband's cash
00:22:51But it seems Unispace
00:22:53The company majority owned by the Hales brothers
00:22:56Made even more
00:22:57After the company was VIP'd via Michael Gove
00:23:01According to the leaked spreadsheets for full body hazmat suits
00:23:04They got more than three times the average price charged by other suppliers in the previous two weeks
00:23:11£24 each rather than £7
00:23:15Suggesting a difference across the contract of £170 million
00:23:19In November 2022
00:23:22One of the company's owners Gareth Hales
00:23:25Reportedly bought a $9 million luxury mansion in Australia
00:23:29I felt that we were buying at ridiculous prices
00:23:35Not negotiating enough
00:23:36Not trying to get the best deal
00:23:38It was just very much
00:23:40Let's buy what we can buy
00:23:42And it doesn't really matter about the price
00:23:49International prices for things had gone up
00:23:51Because, you know, when there's a shortage of goods prices go up
00:23:54So there is some mitigation
00:23:56But I still don't think it excuses how much we overpaid
00:24:01How much people have charged us
00:24:03And how much the government at the time lost control
00:24:06The government's internal audit agency
00:24:10Said the VIP prices were not systematically higher
00:24:13And in some cases were lower
00:24:15But their report has not been published
00:24:17Based on the spreadsheets leaked to them
00:24:20Goodlaw Project estimated that VIP lane contracts
00:24:24Were inflated by around £900 million
00:24:27Compared to the average prices across the pandemic
00:24:30Enough to train 14,000 new nurses
00:24:34There's case after case of some companies charging high prices for goods
00:24:43And almost no pushback from the government
00:24:46To try to ensure that they were getting value for taxpayers' money
00:24:49I was disgusted at the amount of money that these companies were making
00:24:53It was just ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching for them
00:24:55Going to this, I was shocked by the scale of the profits
00:25:00The ease with which they were earned
00:25:02And the speed with which they were earned
00:25:05So I took the risk on attitude here
00:25:11Was to be prepared to pay above market value
00:25:14Which normally I would have been pretty aghast at
00:25:16I was the minister for efficiency before
00:25:18I was the minister responding to Covid
00:25:20And so I found it quite uncomfortable
00:25:22But it was necessary to save lives
00:25:24We shifted heaven and earth
00:25:27To get 32 billion items of PPE into this country
00:25:31I'm very proud of what has been achieved
00:25:33The Conservative government maintained that contracts were always awarded by the Department of Health
00:25:39In line with procurement regulations and transparency guidelines to prevent conflicts of interest
00:25:45Throughout the first lockdown, doctors and nurses kept reporting problems with faulty PPE used on the front line
00:25:56Though it's not suggested this is linked to the companies named in this film
00:26:01Sometimes we would find that the equipment that had been supplied just wasn't up to standard
00:26:05I can't count the number of times I went on to a Covid ward and came across PPE that was not fit for purpose
00:26:14Masks are meant to have a bit on the bridge of the nose that you press down so it tightly fits the shape of your face
00:26:21Our masks, often they wouldn't have that so there'd be a gaping hole between your face and the mask
00:26:28Other times you try to put a mask on but the little loops that you hook around your ears would just ping off onto the floor
00:26:36So this mask would just fall at your feet
00:26:39Sometimes the aprons would be so thin they'd be almost transparent
00:26:46It was a bit like putting on cheap cling film and it would just sometimes rip or disintegrate in your hands
00:26:53I can't emphasise enough how scary it is to be spending a day seeing Covid patients when some of the PPE on the ward is that inadequate
00:27:06It is a fact that every single recommendation for the procurement of PPE went through an independent eight stage process verified by independent civil servants
00:27:20In fact it later came out that this eight stage process was only set up in May 2020
00:27:26By which time 46 of 111 PPE contracts on the VIP lane had already been handed out
00:27:33Many of the suppliers who came to the VIP lane were not PPE specialists
00:27:38They'd never done PPE procurement before so it's hardly surprising that actually they weren't always able to come up with the goods
00:27:46To the best of my knowledge all the equipment we're sending out is of the correct standard
00:27:51Analysis in 2022 based on available government figures suggested that almost 60% by value of the PPE supplied by VIP lane companies
00:28:01Was later categorised as not for use in the NHS
00:28:05Though the government has not given details of why
00:28:07You would expect some level of error and wastage in emergency procurement
00:28:15In the non-VIP normal procurement channel the rate of unusable material was 17%
00:28:22But when you get to the nearly 60% in the VIP lane of unusable equipment
00:28:28That's a really staggering level of failure essentially which suggests this was just absolutely the wrong way to go around an emergency procurement
00:28:39A spokesman for Boris Johnson said
00:28:42We stand by the decision to purchase the items that we did
00:28:45We were acting in a highly competitive global market
00:28:48He also claimed 97% of the PPE was suitable for use
00:28:53But official figures show that a third of the equipment not passed on to the NHS
00:29:00Was either defective or not needed
00:29:02And two thirds while functional was not fit for use in the NHS
00:29:12Ianda, the company linked to Andrew Mills
00:29:15Supplied over £150 million worth of respirator masks
00:29:19With ear loops
00:29:21But the government then decided that NHS respirator masks should have full head straps to form a better seal
00:29:27So the Ianda masks were not used in hospitals
00:29:32The Department of Health did accept that the contract was fulfilled
00:29:36And the masks may have been used in care homes, resold or donated
00:29:41Another, PPE Medpro, a VIP courtesy of Michelle Moan
00:29:46Provided gowns worth £122 million that the government says were unusable
00:29:52And all of the £24 million worth of gowns supplied by Lord Chatlington's introduction, SG Recruitment
00:29:58Were found to be unusable
00:30:01The companies all said they complied with contractual specifications
00:30:05The deals were rushed through and the due diligence wasn't deep enough
00:30:11It wasn't thorough enough
00:30:12And it wasn't professionally enough checked
00:30:14Government should have been using very clear contract specifications for PPE to certain medical standards
00:30:20And a lot of the contracts don't appear to have that in there
00:30:23Or people relying on a single photograph of a gown, you know, wrapped in China
00:30:27As proof that, you know, like certain quality controls were being followed
00:30:32And that seems extraordinary to me
00:30:34Another major VIP supplier of unusable PPE was Worldlink Resources
00:30:40That dog here really changed our lives
00:30:43Their deals were brokered by businesswoman Zoe Lee
00:30:47Zoe Lee, before the pandemic struck, sold dog food for a living
00:30:50But in May, she quickly established a new company, brokering PPE deals
00:30:55On behalf of a company called Worldlink Resources, based in Hong Kong
00:31:00Zoe Lee then teamed up with Brooks Newmark, a former Tory minister
00:31:05And he emailed Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary
00:31:09Dear Matt, please find below the proposal I wanted to discuss with you
00:31:13Matt Hancock's office, within one day, brought this offer onto the VIP Lane team
00:31:17And just four days later, Worldlink Resources secured a PPE contract
00:31:23By goggles worth an unbelievable £178 million
00:31:28This was followed by another contract for £18 million worth of surgical gowns
00:31:34A total of over £250 million
00:31:38But we have discovered that the Department of Health bought enough goggles to last 15 years
00:31:43And a decade's worth of surgical gowns
00:31:47£106 million worth of Worldlink's PPE was later categorised as unusable by the NHS
00:31:55Zoe Lee's company, Life Partners, made £17 million worth of profit in its first year
00:32:02Her lawyers say any problems with the PPE were the responsibility of Worldlink, not Life Partners
00:32:08In July 2020, Lee bought herself a £7 million stately home in Berkshire
00:32:14But denied through her lawyers that all her money came from Worldlink
00:32:18Or that undue profits were made off the back of taxpayers
00:32:21The former Tory whip Brooks Newmark's consultancy
00:32:27Saw its capital and reserves go from virtually nothing in 2020
00:32:31To £2.4 million a year later
00:32:33In all, 25 out of 51 VIP lane suppliers provided PPE the government decided could not be used in the NHS
00:32:45Costing £1 billion, enough to pay the salaries of 20,000 resident doctors
00:32:51And even with this much unusable PPE being intercepted before it reached hospitals
00:32:57Unsuitable equipment kept getting to the front line
00:33:00Although there is no evidence that any of this was supplied by the companies named in this film
00:33:08It's unacceptable that faulty PPE was making its way through to the front line
00:33:13Fundamentally, the staff working in the NHS, trying to look after patients, were let down by the government
00:33:19We were lambs to the slaughter
00:33:23We were not protected properly
00:33:26Working with patients with infectious diseases
00:33:29You expect that some staff will inevitably catch that disease
00:33:33And that's a risk we accept as healthcare workers
00:33:35But if we'd had proper PPE supplied when we needed it
00:33:38Some of those infections could have been prevented
00:33:40I'm absolutely certain that there are NHS doctors and nurses who are not alive today
00:33:45Because of poor quality PPE
00:33:57Critics say that the way the VIP lane operated led to distortions in the procurement process
00:34:04And also caused major problems for the taxpayer
00:34:07We should have thought from people who knew what they were doing
00:34:11But instead we are paying the price
00:34:13This was a system that was completely unique to the UK
00:34:20We couldn't find any other country in the world that chose to create a VIP lane
00:34:26This was absolutely flying in the face of all international best practice
00:34:31Essentially throwing the rule book out of the window
00:34:34But as the first lockdown came to an end
00:34:37The government had already created a second VIP lane
00:34:40The lateral flow test market became another gold rush
00:34:45Billions and billions of pounds of contracts were being awarded
00:34:48When I found out that there was a VIP lane in testing
00:34:52I just thought, you are kidding
00:34:55Here we go again
00:34:56Here we go again
00:35:08You can meet other people in the park
00:35:10But it should be one other person from another household and observing social distancing
00:35:14By May 2020, the first lockdown was coming to an end
00:35:20And the government had come up with a new plan
00:35:23We will have a test, track and trace operation
00:35:27That will be world beating
00:35:29Today we formally launch NHS Test and Trace
00:35:33This is an incredibly important milestone for the country
00:35:38NHS Test and Trace means we can start to replace the national lockdown
00:35:44With individual isolation
00:35:47So which companies were contracted to deliver this world beating operation?
00:35:53I started to look at the contracts being published for the Test and Trace programme
00:35:56And almost immediately noticed a familiar pattern emerging
00:36:01Where huge contracts were being awarded to companies with little or no experience
00:36:07One of those was Okora
00:36:10A medical bedding company owned by the Drake family
00:36:13Through former Tory Health Secretary Andrew Lansley
00:36:17Okora were introduced to Lord Bethel
00:36:19The Tory peer and Health Minister
00:36:21Working on test and trace under Matt Hancock
00:36:23The nation is hugely grateful
00:36:26He passed them on to the VIP team
00:36:28The company was given a testing contract for nearly £19 million
00:36:33Although it had no track record in medical diagnostics
00:36:37You can't find a better purpose than what we have here at Tanner Pharma Group
00:36:44Another company with no previous testing experience, Tanner Pharma
00:36:48was given contracts totalling £1.4 billion after it contacted a Department of Health official
00:36:55But even Tanner's £1 billion payday was dwarfed by one secured by a brand new start-up
00:37:03The biggest winner of Covid contracts was this company called Iniva
00:37:08Iniva appeared from nowhere in March 2020
00:37:11It was set up by Charles Wang
00:37:15Who did a marketing PhD in Glasgow in the 90s
00:37:18Before setting up a private equity firm in California
00:37:21Iniva got its contract after it reached out to Dominic Cummings
00:37:26Who was Boris Johnson's advisor at the time
00:37:29And then it was fast-tracked and it got its contract
00:37:35Within just one hour of receiving Iniva's email
00:37:40Cummings office had passed it on to senior officials in charge of Test and Trace
00:37:45His involvement didn't end there
00:37:48He also lobbied Rishi Sunna
00:37:50To get round what he saw as Whitehall bureaucracy and buy the tests
00:37:54This was incredibly effective
00:37:58In a couple of months contracts started flowing to Iniva
00:38:01By the end of the pandemic
00:38:05Iniva had been paid over £5 billion by the UK government
00:38:09Despite being a brand new company with no track record in supplying medical goods
00:38:14Very few companies in British history have made more money more quickly than Iniva did
00:38:22In selling lateral flow tests to the government
00:38:26Some of the companies winning contracts also seem to have political connections
00:38:33Once I started seeing these connections appear again
00:38:37You just get a sinking feeling that the government had not learnt the lessons from the previous VIP lane
00:38:43Then in May 2021
00:38:46Good Law Project obtained an email that confirmed their suspicions
00:38:49The email revealed that there was a VIP lane for Test and Trace as well
00:38:54The civil servant was instructing ministers that they should put fast track in their subject header
00:39:00This time the VIP lane was on a much larger scale
00:39:05Where billions and billions of pounds of contracts were being awarded
00:39:08Government flat out denied that there was a VIP lane for Test and Trace
00:39:13These claims are completely false
00:39:16There was no high priority lane for testing suppliers
00:39:20But we held the emails from senior civil servants describing the VIP lane in Test and Trace
00:39:26They just lied
00:39:28The government eventually admitted there was indeed a VIP lane for Test and Trace
00:39:34Though it said it was not just for referrals from high ranked individuals
00:39:38But also where there were shortages or bottlenecks in supply
00:39:41From the 7.9 billion pounds spent on testing from May 20 to March 21
00:39:47More than three quarters of this, 6 billion, went to just 50 VIP lane companies
00:39:53With conservative politicians or advisors involved in the referral of, or linked to, 11 of them
00:40:00Many of the VIPs did have experience in medical testing and some were existing suppliers
00:40:06But the lion's share of the money, 5 billion pounds, went to Innova
00:40:12The brand new start-up, VIP'd, via Dominic Cummings
00:40:16It's supposed to be more than 2 metres apart
00:40:18Which had no track record whatsoever
00:40:22These are like the prisoners in case
00:40:24They are a bit, yeah
00:40:26Test and Trace was meant to be the route to freedom
00:40:29Allowing the end of lockdown and the return to normal life
00:40:32Hello
00:40:34And briefly, over the summer of 2020, things seemed to be looking up
00:40:38But the optimism was short-lived
00:40:41And the VIP deals for testing turned out to have similar problems to those for PPE
00:40:47This guy is negative
00:40:49There was huge controversy for quite a long time around the accuracy of the Innova tests
00:40:55A lot of people said they were not as accurate as the company was claiming that they were
00:41:01Accurate when used correctly
00:41:04One study found that although useful, the Innova tests missed 3 out of 5 infections in people who self-swabbed
00:41:13A later study found a slightly better result, with only 2 out of 5 infections being missed when self-swabbing
00:41:20Making the test 60% accurate
00:41:2260% accuracy in a lateral flow test is absolutely rubbish
00:41:29It doesn't help you as a doctor because it's not sensitive enough to either rule in or rule out Covid
00:41:38I mean, these tests were terrible tests
00:41:41They had very low levels of accuracy
00:41:43The US Food and Drug Administration issued the sort of most serious and urgent of its recall notices in respect to these tests
00:41:53It told consumers to throw them in the bin
00:41:57Literally, that's what it said
00:41:58It also said that they believed the test data supplied by Innova may have been falsified
00:42:08I mean, this is really striking stuff
00:42:11And yet, we kept shoving more and more billions of pounds of our money down Innova's throat
00:42:17The whole thing is kind of totally mind-blowing
00:42:20Innova says that their tests were accurate when used correctly, cost-effective and met the government's urgent requirements
00:42:30Staff didn't trust the lateral flow tests at all
00:42:34Because they were just so rubbish at picking up cases of Covid
00:42:39Lateral flow tests were less reliable than lab tests
00:42:43But they gave instant results
00:42:45And were good at identifying the most infectious individuals
00:42:47But as with PPE, the government significantly overbought Covid tests
00:42:53In 2023, it admitted it had a third of a billion unused tests in stock
00:42:58We discovered that 126 million Covid tests were unusable
00:43:06Costing almost £250 million
00:43:10And of the six suppliers that we know about, five came to us through the VIP lane
00:43:19The government did not say why the tests were unusable
00:43:23There's your test kit
00:43:25There were also issues with the other main form of testing, the PCR test
00:43:29Which had to be sent off to a lab
00:43:31Randox Laboratories is a Northern Ireland-based testing company
00:43:36It actually had a sitting Conservative MP, Owen Paterson, working as a paid advisor
00:43:43He was earning £100,000 a year in that role
00:43:47In January and February 2020, Paterson, a former Tory minister, repeatedly lobbied Matt Hancock on behalf of Randox
00:43:54And though Randox has never been named as a VIP company, on March 1, civil servants confirmed that, along with certain other companies, it had been prioritised for the testing of its product
00:44:07By March, Randox were ordered their first contract, worth over £100 million
00:44:13The National Audit Office has since said that because the Department of Health did not keep or disclose full records
00:44:19It is not possible to provide positive assurance in the normal way, but we have not seen any evidence that the government's contracts with Randox were awarded improperly
00:44:30But soon after Test and Trace was launched, issues started to emerge with the company's PCR tests
00:44:38Just four months after winning their first contract in 2020, officials issued a huge recall, 750,000 tests were sent back
00:44:47The government said the recall was only a precautionary measure, the risk to safety was low, and test results were not affected
00:44:56Two months later, the company got another PCR testing deal worth £328 million, though issues were continuing
00:45:05Undercover reporters went into the Randox labs, and what they discovered was shocking
00:45:10Randox disputed the findings of the programme
00:45:19After the undercover reporting, the Health and Safety Executive visited Randox's labs in Northern Ireland
00:45:24And they were shocked by what they saw, they issued a notice to Randox to take immediate action to clear up the mess
00:45:42The Randox labs were subsequently declared COVID compliant, and the company went on to be awarded £300 million
00:45:51With the further testing contracts
00:45:53Randox and Owen Paterson say that he played no role in the negotiation or securing of the contracts
00:45:59And that they were all awarded in full compliance with government procedures of protocols in place at the time
00:46:03But they weren't the only ones with problems
00:46:08The scandal over false negative PCR tests, which wrongly gave thousands of people across the West the all clear
00:46:16Another company, Immensa Health, won VIP contracts worth £169 million for COVID testing after going through the public portal
00:46:25Within a few weeks of tests arriving at Immensa's labs in Wolverhampton, there were complaints about negligence and bad practices
00:46:34The Sun filmed secret footage showing lab workers brawling, sleeping at their desk, playing football and bragging about drinking alcohol whilst at work
00:46:45Lots of people in the scientific community knew that the results that the Immensa lab was producing were wrong
00:46:55And the Welsh Government also was expressing concern about the results, but we just didn't do anything
00:47:01We let them carry on spending money, we let them carry on delivering these false results
00:47:06It was eventually discovered that Immensa were responsible for giving out 39,000 incorrect COVID test results
00:47:14This led to a huge spike in COVID cases
00:47:17And 23 people, according to government's own numbers, lost their lives in consequence
00:47:25The government finally took action
00:47:29All COVID testing at a privately run lab in Wolverhampton has been suspended
00:47:34And as with PPE a few months earlier, the lack of competitive tendering meant that companies, including those on the VIP lane, were at a significant advantage with respect to pricing
00:47:45The government had no kind of power in the negotiations, there was no competition
00:47:52So if you were lucky enough to be in the testing market already, the profits that testing companies made, the ones that were in early in particular, were absolutely huge
00:48:03One company, Nationwide Pathology, introduced by Tory MP Alberto Costa, made 40 million over the pandemic, a profit margin of 45%
00:48:15Sure-screen diagnostics, referred by MP and former Conservative Minister Liam Fox, made 67 million, also a profit margin of 45%
00:48:24And Primer Design, a VIP and existing supplier that repeatedly contacted Health Minister Lord Bethel, made 178 million in 2020, a profit margin of 65%
00:48:38These are completely unprecedented profits for goods like this, this is 50% profit margin, some companies are reporting 60%
00:48:48This is an absolute bonfire of profit
00:48:53Randox Laboratories was given contracts totalling over three quarters of a billion pounds across the pandemic, following the lobbying efforts of Conservative MP Owen Paterson
00:49:02Randox made about 300 million during the pandemic in profits, at margins around the 40% mark, which is absolutely unheard of before or since
00:49:16I mean, these are profit margins that they couldn't even dream of in normal times
00:49:21The company says it received 470 million pounds under its contracts
00:49:26Its profits reflect the risks and challenges in the early pandemic and its investment
00:49:30Its prices fell when markets stabilised and it provided value for money
00:49:35And Tanner Farmer, which we can reveal was also on the VIP lane, went from a pre-pandemic loss of half a million pounds
00:49:44To a cumulative profit of 193 million during the pandemic
00:49:49And it paid its owner Banks-Bourn 148 million pounds in dividends
00:49:54That's not a bad payday from the British taxpayer
00:49:58But Innova, the company fast-tracked via Dominic Cummings, was by far the biggest winner
00:50:07It made a profit of one and a half billion pounds, despite having no experience whatsoever of medical testing
00:50:14The government was so desperate to get its hands on these rapid tests that they massively overpaid for them
00:50:20Charles Huang, the private equity investor behind Innova, seen here in a documentary extolling his achievements
00:50:30Is alleged in a legal claim by his former business partners to have taken at least one billion dollars of Innova's profits for his own use
00:50:36Including spending 70 million dollars on private jets, buying an 18 million dollar mansion in LA and multiple homes for his mistresses
00:50:47He denies the allegations
00:50:50I've heard the argument so many times that the government had to act in this way in order to move quickly and save lives
00:50:56But the evidence that we now have shows that that just doesn't stand up to scrutiny
00:51:03A pandemic was always going to be expensive
00:51:06But we didn't need to turn it into the Profiteers Charter that we did
00:51:10And that we're now paying the price for
00:51:12Obviously I cared about how much money we were spending
00:51:15But I thought that that was second order to stopping the pandemic and keeping people alive
00:51:19We spent about three times as much on Test and Trace as we spent on PPE
00:51:26And we know that Test and Trace made no discernible difference
00:51:32Over two years the Test and Trace programme cost around £37 billion
00:51:38Enough to pay for a hundred new hospitals or 1,200 new schools
00:51:43The Conservative government claimed Test and Trace was a success
00:51:46Reducing transmission by at least 10%
00:51:50But the Public Accounts Committee described the cost as unimaginable
00:51:55And said the programme failed to deliver on its central promise of avoiding another lockdown
00:52:00The virus is spreading even faster than the reasonable worst case scenario
00:52:08And so now is the time to take action because there is no alternative
00:52:13The UK plunged into a second lockdown in November 2020
00:52:20But the spending didn't end with the failure of Test and Trace
00:52:25We spent well over a billion pounds storing it
00:52:29And we're spending millions of pounds incinerating it
00:52:32Billions of pounds of public money wasted and literally going up in smoke
00:52:36The millions of people would not end up in smoke
00:52:50Absolutely fine
00:52:53Almost two years after the first lockdown
00:52:55The success of the Covid vaccines meant it was mission accomplished in the battle against Covid
00:52:59in the battle against Covid.
00:53:00We will remove all remaining domestic restrictions in law.
00:53:09But though the pandemic was over, the spending continued.
00:53:13Vast quantities of PPE, much of it bought at significantly inflated prices,
00:53:18now had to be either stored or destroyed.
00:53:22So one of the startling things about the UK's response,
00:53:26if you compare it to its international peers,
00:53:28is just the scale of over-ordering of PPE.
00:53:32We spent far more than any other European country.
00:53:35Most of them stopped buying after a couple of months.
00:53:37The UK kept going and going like a runaway train.
00:53:42We can reveal that confidential government briefing papers
00:53:45say the intention was to buy just four months' worth of PPE.
00:53:49But we have found the government went on to stockpile five years' worth.
00:53:54And in one category, 15 years' worth.
00:53:58In all, the UK spent around £15 billion on PPE.
00:54:02Whereas according to one analysis,
00:54:05every other country in Europe spent less than £3 billion.
00:54:08Though this figure was disputed at the inquiry.
00:54:11The UK's approach seems to be buy as much as we possibly can.
00:54:17We're not quite sure how much we need,
00:54:19but let's ensure that we've built up this massive stockpile
00:54:22and down the consequences in terms of cost
00:54:25or the quality of the materials that we bought.
00:54:29We had so much stock that we were still buying
00:54:33when we knew that we didn't need any more.
00:54:35The problem with having all this extra PPE
00:54:38was that we weren't able to warehouse it
00:54:40and that it was just getting left at the docks.
00:54:42In late 2020, something like 11,000 shipping containers
00:54:49were blocking ports across the country.
00:54:51Felixstowe Port almost ground to a halt.
00:54:55Mountains of shipping containers
00:54:59began popping up around the country.
00:55:01We knew we had too much PPE.
00:55:04It was there on the docks in China
00:55:06and we were trying to stop it coming over from China.
00:55:09By March 22, with the pandemic officially over,
00:55:13the UK had 300 pieces of unused PPE
00:55:16for every person in the country.
00:55:1820.6 billion items.
00:55:21At a cost to the taxpayer of almost £10 billion.
00:55:25The oversupply was rather larger than I anticipated,
00:55:29but it is better to err on the side of more supply
00:55:33because if you err on the side of less,
00:55:35then you run out and we got very close to that.
00:55:39Some of this was unusable,
00:55:41but a lot of it was simply the result
00:55:43of significant over-ordering
00:55:45and now someone had to be paid to store it.
00:55:48Companies that were previously hired
00:55:50to supply PPE and deliver PPE
00:55:53were now being rewarded again
00:55:55by being given huge contracts
00:55:57to store surplus stocks of PPE.
00:56:02The biggest beneficiary was Uniserv,
00:56:04the UK's largest privately owned logistics
00:56:07and freight management company.
00:56:09We were contacted by the DHSC on Mothering Sunday,
00:56:13the 22nd of March last year,
00:56:16initially to urgently move ventilators out of China
00:56:21into the UK.
00:56:23Prior to that, we hadn't spoken to the DHSC,
00:56:27we hadn't sold into government.
00:56:29Had you procured PPE before the pandemic?
00:56:32We hadn't procured PPE before, no.
00:56:34We told the DHSC that at the beginning.
00:56:37Within nine days,
00:56:38the company was given
00:56:39a half-a-billion-pound contract
00:56:41to provide freight services
00:56:43for PPE and medical equipment.
00:56:45It was then referred to the VIP lane
00:56:47by Lord Agnew in the Cabinet Office
00:56:49and secured further contracts
00:56:51for £304 million to provide PPE.
00:56:56Uniserv says everything it supplied
00:56:58was certified and approved
00:56:59by the Department of Health.
00:57:01But for reasons unknown,
00:57:02more than half of this was later categorised
00:57:04as not for use in the NHS.
00:57:08That makes it one of the worst cases
00:57:10in the VIP lane.
00:57:12According to leaked spreadsheets,
00:57:14the company charged 87p for face masks,
00:57:17compared to an average of 24p charged
00:57:20in the previous two weeks by other companies,
00:57:23suggesting a difference of £48 million
00:57:26across the contract.
00:57:29Uniserv say prices were changing daily.
00:57:31Their price included customs costs
00:57:34and urgent delivery to the UK
00:57:36and is not comparable to other prices
00:57:38in the leaked spreadsheets.
00:57:41The government then went on to pay Uniserv
00:57:43another half a billion pounds to store PPE.
00:57:47In all, Uniserv made operating profits
00:57:50of £297 million over the pandemic,
00:57:53up from just £6 million pre-COVID.
00:57:56But they say the majority of revenue
00:57:58came from shipping, not PPE,
00:58:00and that its margin was lower
00:58:02than other companies operating from Asia.
00:58:10By January 2023,
00:58:12the government had spent over a billion pounds
00:58:15storing surplus PPE.
00:58:17Cost per day,
00:58:18it's about £700,000 a day
00:58:20that we're currently paying per day.
00:58:22Yes, correct.
00:58:23Which is why we are writing off the stock
00:58:26and effectively disposing it.
00:58:27So we tried to donate as much of it as possible
00:58:30for people who want it
00:58:31and we've got to bite the bullet on the rest
00:58:33and say, you know what, it's no longer required
00:58:36and so we are disposing it as rapidly as possible.
00:58:39The favoured method of disposal was incineration.
00:58:46We're talking about probably the biggest misspending scandal
00:58:48in the UK of all time,
00:58:50with billions of pounds of public money wasted
00:58:52and literally going up in smoke.
00:58:54At one point, we were seeing 500 lorry loads
00:58:57of unusable or wasted PPE being burnt a month
00:59:01and that just seems an insane waste of public money.
00:59:13By the end of 2024,
00:59:15over a million pallets of PPE had been disposed of,
00:59:18enough to stretch from Land's End to John O'Groats.
00:59:22Taxpayers spent over £8 billion buying this surplus stock,
00:59:27enough to employ over 200,000 nurses.
00:59:31One of the biggest frustrations in that role
00:59:36was just seeing that we were wasting so much money,
00:59:39money that could have been used on operations,
00:59:42money that could have been spent in the NHS.
00:59:46It didn't have to be this way.
00:59:47No other country introduced a VIP day.
00:59:50No other country procured so much PPE
00:59:53and subsequently no other country had as much waste as we did.
00:59:57So what's happened to those who benefited from all this waste
01:00:04and the politicians responsible for overseeing it?
01:00:08In December 2020,
01:00:10Good Law Project started a legal action
01:00:12against the Department of Health over the PPE high priority lane.
01:00:16After a very long fight in the High Court,
01:00:18the High Court concluded that the VIP lane was unlawful.
01:00:24The case focused on contracts for two companies, Pestfix and Ianda.
01:00:29The judge said the Department of Health did not rely on their high priority status
01:00:33when awarding the contracts.
01:00:34Both were rightly prioritised,
01:00:37would very likely have won contracts anyway
01:00:39and the due diligence was acceptable under the circumstances.
01:00:44But, the court also said the secret high priority lane
01:00:47was in breach of the obligation of equal treatment
01:00:49and as such, unlawful.
01:00:53Given the VIP lane was ruled to be illegal,
01:00:56why are there no consequences for that?
01:00:59Over a hundred companies benefited from the two VIP lanes.
01:01:05But until now,
01:01:06the only company to get significant attention
01:01:09has been PPE MedPro and Michelle Moan.
01:01:12Hindsight's a wonderful thing.
01:01:14I wasn't trying to pull the wheel over anyone's eyes
01:01:18and I regret and I'm sorry for not saying straight out,
01:01:22yes, I am involved.
01:01:23The government is suing the company for $122 million
01:01:28for the unusable gowns it says they provided.
01:01:31They deny any wrongdoing.
01:01:34To me, it's pretty obvious that Michelle Moan is a convenient scapegoat.
01:01:40She's a working class woman from Glasgow.
01:01:44She's not Conservative Party royalty.
01:01:47Everybody likes putting her photo on the front page of their newspapers.
01:01:52But what she did, although bad,
01:01:54was certainly no worse than anyone else's.
01:01:57I think she's become the poster child,
01:01:59a convenient distraction, if you like,
01:02:01for the real wrongdoing here,
01:02:03which was by members of the Conservative Party royalty.
01:02:10There are actually quite a few Baroness Moans out there
01:02:13who should be given the once-over.
01:02:18PPE MedPro is being investigated for fraud
01:02:21and a number of other unnamed PPE suppliers
01:02:24are being investigated by HMRC.
01:02:26But there have been no criminal charges.
01:02:29The government has also been trying to get some money back
01:02:32from other companies.
01:02:33Several of the contracts are now matters of dispute
01:02:37between the government and the supplier.
01:02:39But it's all very behind closed doors.
01:02:42So we don't really know what progress they are making
01:02:45about getting money back.
01:02:48The Department of Health did file a claim for £135 million
01:02:52against Primer Design,
01:02:54saying many of the Covid test kits they supplied were defective,
01:02:57which Primer disputed.
01:02:59But on the day it came to court,
01:03:01a settlement was announced,
01:03:03with Primer Design's parent company
01:03:05paying the Department of Health just £5 million
01:03:07and not admitting any fault.
01:03:10And pest control company Pestfix,
01:03:13that was given contracts for £344 million,
01:03:16has repaid £71 million for faulty masks and gowns.
01:03:22But in other cases,
01:03:23there seems little chance any money will be recovered.
01:03:26The government wants to get £24 million back
01:03:29from Lord Chadlington's introduction,
01:03:31SG Recruitment,
01:03:32for unusable gowns.
01:03:34But there's a problem.
01:03:36The company's gone bust now,
01:03:38and the holding company, SG Holdings,
01:03:40that's gone into liquidation as well in Jersey.
01:03:43So both companies have gone into liquidation.
01:03:45The government says it's in dispute over the PPE deals,
01:03:49but there isn't really a company to be in dispute with anymore.
01:03:52So you have to assume we're not going to get our money back.
01:03:55The liquidators have since reported that SG Recruitment,
01:04:00under a new name and owner,
01:04:01went bust, owing over £1 million in tax.
01:04:06They have so far recovered a total of £5,
01:04:10and believe some of the funds were transferred
01:04:11from the company to unknown third parties.
01:04:14But the company says they were payments to suppliers.
01:04:20Three years on from the end of the pandemic,
01:04:22nearly all the VIP companies and their owners
01:04:25have kept the money where there were issues with the deal.
01:04:28There's been no accountability.
01:04:30They've ridden off into the sunset
01:04:32with their tens of millions,
01:04:34living very lavish lifestyles on the back of a pandemic.
01:04:39I think it's sickening how these people have made so much money.
01:04:42It's the taxpayer at the end of the day
01:04:44that's going to have to foot this bill.
01:04:46The Labour government has appointed a Covid counter-fraud commissioner,
01:04:50Tom Hayhoe.
01:04:51But critics say he and his team have neither the power
01:04:55nor the resources to properly investigate.
01:04:57It's a part-time role on three days a week.
01:05:01There are 130 high-risk contracts with lots of red flags
01:05:06that need to be looked at.
01:05:07That's effectively him looking at one of those each day
01:05:11for his short-term in office.
01:05:12That's a really weak and weedy and substandard response.
01:05:16I just don't see how they're going to get to anything like the truth
01:05:23with the resources that they have.
01:05:25Apart from Michelle Moan,
01:05:27very few of the politicians associated with the VIP lanes
01:05:30or the financial waste have faced any consequences.
01:05:34The people who we should be going after
01:05:37are the politicians who allowed all of this to happen.
01:05:43We are going to fulfil our fundamental project
01:05:47of uniting and levelling up across the whole.
01:05:53For the most part, politicians have not really had to face
01:05:55any accountability for their role in this.
01:06:00Owen Paterson resigned as an MP after being censured
01:06:03for paid advocacy for Randox and another company
01:06:06before the pandemic, even though he was backed
01:06:09by the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
01:06:11He criticised the investigation into him
01:06:14and says he did not lobby anyone
01:06:16and he acted in the interests of public health and safety.
01:06:21Former Tory MP Brooks Newmark
01:06:23and a consultancy firm led by Lord Feldman
01:06:26were investigated but were found not to have breached
01:06:29any parliamentary or lobbying rules.
01:06:32Lord Chatlington was cleared of lobbying
01:06:34and twice of breaching parliamentary standards
01:06:37and is now being investigated by the Lord's Commissioner
01:06:39for standards for the third time.
01:06:43Liam Fox, through whom Sure Screen Diagnostics
01:06:46was referred to the VIP lane,
01:06:48declared a £20,000 donation from Sure Screen in July 2022.
01:06:54The company said the money was donated to Dr Fox's office
01:06:56to support a series of educational events
01:06:58and was not connected to lobbying.
01:07:03Lord Agnew resigned from government
01:07:05in protest at the failure to effectively recoup
01:07:07around £5bn lost to fraudulent applications
01:07:11for Covid business loans.
01:07:13The Treasury appear to have no knowledge or little interest
01:07:16in the consequences of fraud to our economy or society.
01:07:20Total fraud loss across government is estimated at £29bn a year.
01:07:24Of course, not all can be stopped,
01:07:26but a combination of arrogance, indolence and ignorance
01:07:28freezes the government machine.
01:07:30For tens of millions of Britons,
01:07:34the tax burden is now at record levels,
01:07:37in part as a result of the billions
01:07:40unnecessarily wasted during the pandemic.
01:07:44We could have had more services,
01:07:46more doctors, more nurses,
01:07:48sort of the whole country that's suffering,
01:07:50while these people from the VIPs
01:07:52are sitting pretty with all that money.
01:07:55Keir Starmer said he would ban VIP lanes
01:07:57for future procurement while in opposition,
01:08:00but has so far failed to commit to such a ban.
01:08:03Now Labour is in power.
01:08:08The Covid inquiry will deliver,
01:08:10I expect, some lessons to learn,
01:08:14but it's not about punishing wrongdoers.
01:08:17It doesn't even have that aspiration
01:08:19and it certainly won't deliver that consequence.
01:08:22So those decisions over the issuance of contracts
01:08:30were matters for officials, not for politicians.
01:08:38My total focus was to save as many lives as possible.
01:08:42We're primarily talking about PPE,
01:08:44but right across the board,
01:08:45we had to get as much in as we could.
01:08:48In some cases we paid expensive prices for that,
01:08:52but I think that was worth it to save lives.
01:08:55And in the end on PPE we over-succeeded, right?
01:08:58We procured more than was needed
01:09:01and I'm sure we'll come to dealing with the oversupply
01:09:05that we had at the end.
01:09:07We will.
01:09:09The bottom line is this,
01:09:10that it is very, very hard in the UK
01:09:13to hold senior level people to account.
01:09:19They were very, very difficult decisions.
01:09:22At the time, I felt,
01:09:24and I know that everybody else felt
01:09:26that we were doing our best
01:09:28in very difficult circumstances
01:09:30to protect life and protect the NHS.
01:09:34And meanwhile, there are the families
01:09:40of ordinary NHS staff,
01:09:43nurses, doctors, porters,
01:09:46who died in COVID
01:09:48of the virus they caught at work,
01:09:51perhaps because they were supplied with shoddy PPE.
01:09:55I've come to think that it reflects a kind of basic truth,
01:10:09that in Britain, privileged people get privileged access
01:10:13all the way through, all the time,
01:10:15and this was just a particularly egregious example of it.
01:10:25which is extraordinary.
01:10:27In fact, I'm not very weary in the course.
01:10:30But I'm not above all the things
01:10:32that I am here.
01:10:34I've come to think before,
01:10:35but I'm not very weary in thousands of people,
01:10:36because I think it's amazing.
01:10:38I've come to think,
01:10:39and I think there is a wealth gap
01:10:40and I've come to think of it.
01:10:41All the time and I think,
01:10:43I feel like I'm okay.
01:10:44I feel like I'm here.
01:10:46I feel like I'll do it.
01:10:48You know it.
01:10:50I feel like this is a very bad thing.
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