Government Contracts: Randox Laboratories

Debate between Anneliese Dodds and Maggie Throup

Thursday 10th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make a statement on the process for awarding Government contracts to Randox Laboratories Ltd, following the release of documents in response to the Humble Address of 17 November 2021.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maggie Throup)]

In response to the greatest public health emergency that we have faced for a generation, the Government engaged with many businesses—big and small—as part of an unprecedented national effort. On 3 February, we responded to the Humble Address and laid the documents before the House. We are committed to transparency and helping the House perform its valuable scrutiny, and the Department dedicated significant resources to reviewing about 11,000 records to identify the 35 relevant documents. They show how we took every possible step to build the huge infrastructure for testing that we now have in this country—the biggest testing programme in Europe. The programme has done so much to stop the spread of this deadly virus and given us all hope that we can learn to live with covid-19.

Randox has been globally recognised in the diagnostics industry for nearly 40 years and even as early as March 2020 had lab-based PCR testing capacity for covid-19. Robust rules and processes are in place to ensure that all contracts are awarded in line with procurement regulations and transparency guidelines, and that any potential conflicts of interest with respect to commercial matters are appropriately managed. Direct awards, such as in this case, are permitted by public contract regulations for reasons of extreme urgency brought about by unforeseeable events. I am sure that no hon. Member would deny that the situation was one of extreme urgency.

As the House would expect, Ministers of course have a role in approving contracts, but their approval relies on the impartial evaluation conducted by civil servants. I reinforce to hon. Members that Ministers are not involved in the assessment and evaluation process for contracts, and that the documents given to the House show no evidence that any of those principles have been breached. Instead, they plainly show that we did everything in our power to keep this country safe at a time of crisis, as the British people would expect.

[Anneliese Dodds]

The Randox files published last week, later than the Government said they would be—that was not acknowledged by the Minister—paint a picture of a Conservative Government who are simply unfit for office. That Conservative Government played fast and loose with public money. They handed Randox a £133 million contract without competition. The Minister talked about every possible step being taken in testing infrastructure, but let us remember what happened. Randox tried to requisition equipment from universities that, because of the files that were released, we now know had to be stopped. Vital tests in care homes were voided, and 750,000 tests were recalled. The Government’s response was to hand it a second contract worth £350 million, again without competition.

We now know that both the civil service chief operating officer and the Minister, Lord Agnew, sounded a warning alarm. That Minister said that the Department was paying “dramatically over the odds” for Randox’s services, but the Government ploughed on. Why was he ignored, and did the Department do what he asked, and introduce a competitive tender process by March 2021? There does not seem to have been the operation of robust rules that the Minister referred to, or an impartial evaluation. Was that put into place or not?

Secondly, there are still no minutes of that crucial meeting on 9 April, just a rough draft email sent seven months later. Two years on, the Department cannot even explain who was there. We now know that Health Ministers held another four meetings that were never declared in the Register. How many more secret meetings were there?

That brings us to Owen Paterson who, as we now know from these papers, is called “O-Patz”—really, Mr Speaker, is there any clearer sign that we are in the twilight days of this Government? The files show that this former MP, a paid advocate for Randox, was arranging meetings with the Health Secretary in the Division Lobby, a place to which only MPs have access, and where it is impossible for civil servants to join them—hardly the appropriate management of commercial interests that the Minister referred to. Will she explain what was agreed in those discussions, and will she correct her Department’s claim that there is no evidence of any breach of the rules?

[Maggie Throup]

I make no apologies for how we as a country rose to the challenge that we faced in early 2020. I think that sometimes we forget what this country—indeed, the world—was going through. We must remember those days, and I am sure that hon. Members across the House will agree that what we have put in place since will ensure that we can cope far better in the future. We do need to learn lessons, and we will learn lessons.

However, one of the most important lessons that I take from when we worked together is that we can do incredible things. The NHS has been phenomenal, our hospitals have been phenomenal, and local government has been phenomenal, as has the private sector. We have all worked together and we have really worked hard, and that is why we can now see that—with the vaccine programme as well, along with the therapeutics and antivirals—we are combating this virus. We could not have come this far without everybody working together, and this country’s testing structure has been crucial in helping us to get through this time. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who has been involved in this huge effort both at testing sites and working in the lab, and everybody who has come forward to get tested to keep their loved ones safe.

I would like to respond to some of the questions posed by the hon. Lady. My Department did inform you, Mr Speaker, that we were unable to meet our initial deadline for responding to the Humble Address. That was mainly due to the surge of omicron at that time, and the way that my Department had to respond to ensure that we kept our citizens safe from that variant surge.

The hon. Lady raised the issue of the Randox kits that were recalled in the summer of 2020. It was on 15 July that year that NHS Test and Trace was notified that some kits produced by Randox laboratories may not have met the required standard for coronavirus testing. As a precautionary measure, while this was investigated further, NHS Test and Trace paused the use of these Randox test kits with immediate effect. It was on 7 August that the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency instructed Randox to recall the Randox covid-19 home testing kits with a specific catalogue number. That decision was taken as a precautionary measure to prevent any further use of these Randox tests. The risk to safety was low, and test results from Randox kits were not affected. An independent assessment in June 2020 had placed Randox ahead of other laboratories, and Randox was meeting its delivery targets by September 2020. We were very precautionary in the measures we put in place to ensure that we were protecting everybody at that time.

I did note the point of order that the hon Lady made this week about the meeting on 9 April 2020, which she has raised again today. The note was taken during the meeting, and it was saved in a draft folder of the private secretary who took the note. When the Department received a freedom of information request for the minute of the meeting, the private secretary found the minute and shared it. For clarity, “note” and “minute” mean an official record of a meeting; the words mean the same from that point of view.

I reiterate that there are robust rules and processes in place that ensure that contracts are awarded in accordance with the public procurement regulations of 2015, and that Ministers are not involved in the assessment and evaluation process for contracts at all. That is a really important principle that the Government work on now, and have worked on probably for decades, and that principle will never be broken.