REVEALED: The 30 senior Tories who referred companies through the Covid PPE ‘VIP lane’ 

While the Covid pandemic may have receded in importance in the minds of many, what should not be ignored is the long-lasting impact on the public finances of billions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash be squandered on dodgy Covid contracts, which is still having an effect today.

Around £1bn of the £1.7bn spent on PPE from VIP suppliers was wasted on supplies later deemed unfit to use.

Just image how much of that money could have been invested in vital public services.

The VIP lane refers to the previous Tory government’s controversial “high priority lane” used during the COVID-19 pandemic to fast-track personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts for companies recommended by politicians and officials. Courts later ruled this preferential treatment unlawful, with a High Court judge saying: “There is evidence that opportunities were treated as high priority even where there were no objectively justifiable grounds for expediting the offer.”

Companies referred to the VIP lane were ten times more likely to secure contracts, according to the National Audit Office.

Now, after a five-year legal battle, after Democracy for Sale reporter Jenna Corderoy submitted a Freedom of Information request seeking the names of every company referred to the so-called ‘VIP lane’ and those who had recommended them, the names of senior Tories who recommended companies have finally been revealed.

Among those named are eight members of Boris Johnson’s cabinet, Sarah Ferguson and the banking giant Santander.

Four of those cabinet ministers in the documents had not previously been named: then foreign secretary Dominic Raab, justice secretary Robert Buckland, Welsh secretary Simon Hart, and housing secretary Robert Jenrick, who is listed only as a ‘possible’ referrer.

Despite resistance which began under the previous Tory government, the Information Commissioner’s Office ruled last month that the names of referrers should be disclosed.

Democracy for Sale states: “Raab recommended a Cambridgeshire toy maker who had only a single employee at the start of the pandemic. Jenrick, now Reform UK treasury spokesman, is listed as ‘possibly’ referring an export packing firm.

“Graham Brady, then chair of the 1922 committee of backbench Tory MPs, referred an interior design company near his Altrincham and Sale West seat. Brady told Democracy for Sale that he had “no recollection of this but given the location, I assume I was passing on an approach from a constituent. I have no involvement with the company and never have had.” Owen Paterson, who later left parliament after a lobbying scandal, referred a Birmingham biotech firm working on pregnancy complications. None of these firms were given contracts.

“Then health secretary Matt Hancock is named against 27 companies, three of them marked ‘possible’. Former Conservative party chairman Lord Feldman is recorded against 21 (three ‘possible’) and Cabinet Office minister Lord Agnew against 14 (four ‘possible’). Grant Shapps and Michael Gove also referred firms, including, in Gove’s case, Meller Designs, run by donor David Meller, which received £164m in Covid contracts.

“Sarah Ferguson, then the Duchess of York and ex-wife of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, referred Biz Trading Ltd, a small London-based pharmaceutical company that was dissolved in 2022, according to Companies House. The Covid Inquiry previously heard that she had approached the government’s PPE adviser, Lord Deighton, about supplies from China, but the company was not named.

“A Cabinet Office official referred an offer recorded as ‘Greentech Labs on behalf of China Aerospace & NORINCO’. Norinco, China’s main state weapons manufacturer, has been sanctioned by the US. Huawei Technologies was referred by an NHS official in 2020, while the government was reviewing Huawei’s role in 5G, and No 10 policy chief Munira Mirza referred two Chinese firms.”

Transparency International chief executive Duncan Hames said: “The public have a right to know who was fast-tracked and on whose say-so. Five years of resisting disclosure has been a prolonged and unnecessary failure of transparency, and it has only deepened the damage to public trust.”