Angela Rayner says dealings with firm linked to Tory peer Michelle
Mone need same scrutiny as Owen Paterson’s lobbying for Covid test
contracts
Labour has accused ministers of a potential
cover-up over a PPE contract with a company linked to Tory peer Michelle
Mone, after the health department refused to release documents
connected to the deal, citing commercial sensitivities.
Angela
Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, wrote to the government in January to
seek the release of correspondence and records connected to the deal, as
happened over a testing contract won by another company, Randox, after lobbying by the then Tory MP Owen Paterson.
In the letter, Rayner noted that Medpro won the two contracts via a “VIP lane” for politically connected companies after Mone contacted two ministers in May 2020 to say she could source PPE.
“I
would ask now that the government takes the same approach as it has to
the contract with Randox, which was a similar matter of controversy, and
commits now to place all correspondence and records relating to the
award in the library of the house [of Commons] for parliamentary
scrutiny,” Rayner wrote. …
The 25m medical gowns supplied by the company were
never used after officials rejected them after an inspection, with the
Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) seeking to recover money from PPE Medpro
through mediation. PPE Medpro has maintained that it complied with the
terms of its gowns contract and is entitled to keep the money it was
paid.
In a statement, Rayner said the government’s refusal to release the documents “reeks of a cover-up”.
She
said: “The fact that Medpro is in mediation for providing useless PPE
is no excuse for failing to be transparent with the public – in fact it
only strengthens the need for clarity about how this eye-watering waste
was allowed to happen.
“The government have shown complete disregard for working people by wasting taxpayers’ money on dodgy contracts.”
On
Wednesday, the NCA searched several properties associated with Medpro
in the Isle of Man and London, including the Isle of Man office building
where PPE Medpro is registered and the mansion where Lady Mone lives
with her husband, the business magnate Douglas Barrowman. …
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