Gove broke the law over contract links to Cummings

The High Court has ruled Michael Gove broke the law over the UK Government handing a contract to friends of the Prime Minister’s former aide Dominic Cummings.

Campaigners took legal action against the Cabinet Office over the decision to pay more than £500,000 of taxpayers’ money to market research firm Public First.

Lawyers from the Good Law Project accused the then-chief adviser to the Prime Minister, Mr Cummings, of wanting work to be given to a company whose bosses were his friends.

Delivering her judgment, Justice O’farrell said: “The fair-minded and informed observer would have appreciated that it was vital that the results and conclusions from the research were reliable and that Mr Cummings was uniquely placed, given his experience and expertise, to form a rapid view on which organisation might best be able to deliver those urgent requirements.

“However, the defendant’s failure to consider any other research agency, by reference to experience, expertise, availability or capacity, would lead a fair-minded and informed observer to conclude that there was a real possibility, or a real danger, that the decision-maker was biased.

“The claimant is entitled to a declaration that the decision of 5 June 2020 to award the contract to Public First gave rise to apparent bias and was unlawful.”

Mr Cummings and the government had denied any wrongdoing.

Lawyers representing the Cabinet Office told the judge that Mr Cummings made a recommendation, not a decision, and the Good Law Project’s claim should be dismissed.

They said that, during a national emergency, Mr Cummings “recommended a firm he knew could get the job done”.

Speaking afterwards, a Good Law Project spokeswoman said: “Michael Gove had tried to argue that only Public First could carry out the contracted work and everyone was acting under pressure.

“However, the High Court found that version of events ‘does not stand up to scrutiny’ and ‘the time constraints … did not exonerate the defendant from conducting the procurement so as to demonstrate a fair and impartial process of selection.”

“The truth, it said, is the Cabinet Office didn’t even consider whether to give the contract to anyone else. Emails between civil servants revealed in the course of Good Law Project’s legal action revealed both Michael Gove and No.10 wanted

0 Michael Gove was found to have been biased in the awarding of the contract

contracts to be awarded to Public First.”

In February, a judge had ruled that Health Secretary Matt Hancock acted unlawfully when his department did not reveal details of contracts

signed during the Covid pandemic.

A Good Law Project spokeswoman said: “This is the second decision in Good Law Project’s slate of crowdfunded procurement judicial reviews

– and Good Law Project has succeeded in both. Two Cabinet Ministers – Michael Gove and Matt Hancock – have broken the law.”