Pest control firm told to pay back £70m over PPE
A PEST control firm has been forced to pay a £70million settlement after supplying the NHS with faulty masks and gowns in the pandemic.
PestFix employed just 16 people and had net assets of £ 18,000 when Covid struck, but it was awarded £350million of contracts to supply personal protective equipment (PPE).
The family- owned company, based in Chichester, West Sussex, won the lucrative deal after its chairman met the Government’s procurement director at a birthday party.
The deal was accelerated via the ‘VIP Lane’, which gave special treatment to firms with contacts in Government. Now PestFix has paid back £70million to the Department of Health.
The payout, first reported in Private Eye, is the first major win for ministers battling to recoup cash lost in the pandemic. But it is still a tiny proportion of the £2.7billion of outstanding disputed deals.
PestFix director Joe England met the Department of Health’s chief commercial officer Steve Oldfield at the party and a consultant helping the Government with PPE procurement forwarded details to civil servants, writing: ‘One for the VIP list, please.’ In
January, a judge found that a PestFix batch of Filtering Facepiece ( FFP3) masks failed quality tests and six million aprons were rejected for use because they were the wrong size.
The company did successfully deliver a batch of another type of masks, two million gloves and other products to the contracted standard. The firm’s founder Dan England had sourced the PPE using his veterinary surgeon wife’s contacts in China.
Although the firm was a supplier to the NHS, it had never provided medical grade PPE before.
Mr England told officials that his ‘strong family connections on the ground in China’ meant the company was ‘uniquely placed to help the UK deal with a potentially devastating shortage of vital PPE’.
The VIP Lane has thrown up a series of controversies and was ruled ‘unlawful’ by the High Court after campaigners took legal action over contracts awarded to PestFix and hedge fund Ayanda Capital.
However, Mrs Justice O’Farrell found that both companies’ contract bids ‘ justified priority treatment’ on their merits and were ‘very likely’ to have been awarded anyway.
PestFix declined to comment yesterday, saying it was bound by confidentiality. The Department of Health was unavailable for comment.
‘Disputed deals total £2.7bn’