TORY LINKS TO £500M CORONA CONTRACT BILL
Pals’ firms won massive deals without having to bid
FIRMS linked to the Tory Party have won nearly £500million in pandemic contracts without having to bid.
Labour says at least 13 companies got the contracts with no competitive tendering.
Shadow Cabinet Office minister Rachel Reeves said: “There has been an alarming pattern of companies with links to the Conservatives doing well out of publicly funded projects during this pandemic.
“People want their governments to use public money fairly and they don’t expect contracts to end up with ministers’ mates.” She is demanding an independent probe. One firm, RANDOX, received £133million for Covid testing. It pays Tory MP and former Cabinet minister Owen Paterson £8,333 a month as an adviser. Earlier this month, 750,000 unused Randox testing kits were recalled over safety concerns.
SERCO is paid £108million for running the national contact-tracing service and nearly £46million by the DWP to run call centres.
Health minister Edward Argar was a senior executive and boss Rupert Soames is brother of former Tory MP Sir Nicholas Soames. In November 2019, Rupert Soames’ wife Camilla donated £ 4,995 to the Tory y Party. y
PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS, which won seven contracts, hired Theresa May’s former top aide Gavin Barwell as a strategic adviser in January. He is also a non-executive adviser at ARCADIS – which was given a £1.5million consultancy contract with the Ministry of Justice in April.
PUBLIC FIRST LTD gets £840,000 to run focus groups for No10. It is owned by James Frayne, y who started the New Frontiers think tank in 2003 w with Dominic Cummings.
DRAGONTOWN DRAGONT LTD was awarded a contract wor worth £675,000 to supply PPE to London’s G Guys’ and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation T Trust.
Lady Xuelin Bates, a director of this firm, is the wife of Tory peer and former minister Lord Bate Bates and has donated £30,000 to th the Tories.
GRIEVING families today beg the Government to reveal how many coronavirus victims were infected in hospital.
Figures were due out this month, but sources think replacing Public Health England with the National Institute for Health h Protection may mean months of delay.
The families believe ieve PM Boris Johnson and Health Secretary Matt Hancock ancock are trying to conceal eal the truth and PHE has as been used as a scapegoat. at. Some experts fear up to 8,000 caught the bug on wards while others believe the number could be even higher.
The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK group wants a statutory judge- led inquiry into the Government’s handling of the pandemic, with an urgent phase reporting in wee weeks to help avoid a devastating secon second wave of deaths. The group r represents 1,500 victims. Co-fou Co-founder Jo Goodman, 32, who lost her dad Stuart, 72, in April, sai said: “Dozens of our members kno know from painful firsthand experie experience how their loved ones went in into hospitals without
Cov Covid-19 yet died from it. We have heard time and time again that despite the heroics of our doctors and nurses, patients were left exposed because of catastrophic and avoidable failings. The Scottish government released its figures on hospitalacquired infections at the beginning of June. Yet the Conservatives won’t.”
Labour and the Liberal Democrats back the group’s calls and insisted not knowing the number of hospital infections meant a second wave in winter
may be more deadly and deny a chance to learn lessons.
Shadow Health Minister Justin Madders said: “This data should be made available now – if we do not know the extent of the problem we can’t possibly be in the best position possible to tackle it.
“It is the least Matt Hancock can do to demonstrate to those that have lost loved ones this way that he is doing everything possible to prevent a repeat of that.”
Lib Dem MP Layla Moran, who chairs the cross-party inquiry into coronavirus, said: “It appears the early warning signs were ignored, with devastating consequences for vulnerable patients and their families.”
Peter Walsh, of the patient safety charity Action against Medical Accidents, said: “The Government should routinely publish figures about hospital acquired Covid- 19 and the resulting deaths.
“Hospital trusts with high rates should be investigated and action taken.” The Families g r oup’s l a wyer, Elkan Abrahamson, said: “There is an absolute need for an urgent phase to this review to avoid further loss of life over the winter period.”
A British Medical Association spokesman said: “We echo the call for more transparency to help improve infection control where necessary, and hospital data should be published to ensure trusts can get the support they need in further reducing the spread of the virus.”