Randox Covid Contracts

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the Good Law Project, which started to close the net on Lord Bethell by unearthing all his burner, drug dealer-type actions?

[Angela Rayner]

I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning the Good Law Project. Over the past couple of weeks we have been talking about the sleaze and corruption we have seen. The Prime Minister spoke at Prime Minister’s questions about how sleaze and corruption affect the UK. I say to him and to Conservative Members that it is not the UK that is sleazy and corrupt, as we have seen in how the UK has responded to the sleaze and corruption; it is this Government who are sleazy and corrupt.

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[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right on that, which leads me to my second simple question for the House today. Two weeks ago, the Government led Conservative Members through the Lobby for a stitch-up and a cover-up. Many of those Members have publicly and privately expressed their regret at voting in favour of that motion, and I have no doubt that their regret is sincere. They surely must now look with fresh eyes at those who led them through the Lobby. The Prime Minister brought shame on our democracy and on this House. That vote undermined trust in our democracy and the integrity of public office. So today I say to right hon. and hon. Members opposite: learn the lesson; do not vote for another cover-up.

The first step in restoring trust is publishing these documents today. Taxpayers’ money must be treated with respect, not handed out in backhand deals to companies that pay Conservative MPs to lobby on their behalf. Randox is just the tip of the iceberg in this scandal. Just yesterday, we finally found out the list of the favoured suppliers referred to—the so-called VIP lane for PPE procurement. This is the information that Ministers have failed to release of their own accord, despite a ruling from the Information Commissioner; we found out only because of a leak. No wonder they did not want to publish it. We already knew that those companies that got to the VIP lane were 10 times more likely to win a contract than anyone else. As Ministers have belatedly admitted, many of these did not go through the so-called “eight-stage process” of diligence. We now know how these companies got into the VIP lane in the first place. Not a single one of them had been referred by a politician of any political party other than the Conservative party. Of the 47 successful companies revealed yesterday, the original source of referral was a Conservative politician or adviser in 19 cases. The then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the Cabinet member who oversaw the entire emergency procurement programme, fast-tracked a bid from one of his own personal friends and donors, who went on to win hundreds of millions of pounds of public money.

[Dawn Butler]

My right hon. Friend might also reference an article by Sam Bright from Byline Times, who talks about the fact that £1 billion of contracts have been awarded to Conservative donors.

[Angela Rayner]

And £3.5 billion of contracts have been handed out by this Government to their political donors and Ministers’ mates. Almost £3 billion more has been wasted on unusable PPE, which is costing British taxpayers £1 million a day just to store. So, yes, we need an investigation into that, too. We need an investigation into every pound and penny that has been handed out, and to learn the lessons so that public money is not wasted again. But the question before the House today is very simple: do we choose to clean up or to cover up?

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[The Minister for Care and Mental Health (Gillian Keegan)]

I am grateful to the Opposition for using today’s debate to raise such an important matter. I welcome the opportunity to debate it and to introduce a few facts.

We have risen to meet the greatest public health challenge in a generation, by working together. Whether it is the NHS, Government, academia, industry, the Army or, indeed, the British people, we have all had our part to play. That has meant that, today, we have given over 110 million life-saving vaccine doses and are now rolling out the booster programme. We have launched game-changing treatments such as dexamethasone and Ronapreve and, of course, built the largest testing infra- structure in Europe, with the new-found ability to test millions of people in a single day.

[Dawn Butler]

Why did we not use the infrastructure that existed when we were building the system?

[Gillian Keegan]

That is a very good question and one that I myself have asked. It is important to look at what we actually did. The equipment we had was in universities, and some of it was in NHS labs, but they did not have the scale that we needed, so we all worked together in what they call the triple-helix partnership: universities, the NHS and industry worked together to build and scale up to the level we needed. If you remember, there was discussion at the time about moonshot testing; you all laughed, as you always do because you do not have to deliver, but we delivered it. We delivered the moonshot.

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[Gillian Keegan]

I am feeling my luck, Mr Speaker.

[Dawn Butler]

May I clarify that, first, the Government did not actually deliver the moonshot, and secondly, that in the end the £100 billion for private companies was diverted to local councils and authorities, which were the ones that delivered the vaccination roll-out, with the help of the NHS, which is a socialist endeavour? I caution the Minister not to twist the truth.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sure that no Member would twist the truth.

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[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I just say that this is a very interesting question? I know that the Minister has been put on the spot in being asked to provide an answer, but meetings should be logged and minutes of official meetings should be held. If the Minister cannot provide an answer to this very serious question today, I hope that it will be looked into, because it will bring a lot of other things into question if what has been said is indeed the case. I do not want to make a political point, but I am very concerned about this matter for all of us in this House. I am sorry to interrupt you, Minister.

[Dawn Butler]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can you make it absolutely clear—and I have been in government— that regardless of whether we are in a pandemic, there is an agenda for ministerial meetings and a civil servant present? A pandemic is not an excuse for not recording minutes of meetings.

[Mr Speaker]

In fact, to answer that point of order, I would have thought that it was even more important to hold meetings on the basis that we were in a pandemic, with minutes that we could refer back to. I am very, very concerned. I do not want to put anybody on the spot, but at some point this matter does need to be clarified.

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[Gillian Keegan]

I do not have a definition of what is within scope, but we will provide that information.

The NAO report said that

“the ministers had properly declared their interests, and we found no evidence of their involvement in procurement decisions or contract management.”

The NAO has confirmed that all the proper contracting procedures were followed. As with all Government contracts, contracts with Randox are published online and can be found through Contracts Finder. I think that hon. Members will find that the date of the contract precedes any minutes or meetings that we have been talking about. In case any Opposition Members have forgotten, Ministers have no role in the evaluation of Government contracts, in the procurement process, in the value of contracts, in the scope of contracts or in the length of contracts. From start to finish, the procurement process is rightly carried out by commercial professionals, who are governed by a strict regulatory framework. I know this, because I was a procurement manager for much of my career before coming here.

[Dawn Butler]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister has been given a really hard gig today and I am actually beginning to feel sorry for her, because she has been given a script that is filled with inaccuracies, and the NAO report is filled with inaccuracies. It is really worrying that the Minister is continuing with an inaccurate script.

[Mr Speaker]

First of all, that is a point of debate, and the hon. Lady would not expect me to be brought into the debate. Ministers must answer points in their way, and it is for the Opposition to open up the statements that have been made. That is why we have Opposition days, in which I expect people to pose questions. I am sure that when the Minister sums up, she will fill in some of the voids. I am not responsible for what the Minister says; I certainly do not want to be and it would be wrong even to consider that I should be.

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[Gillian Keegan]

May I just make a little bit of progress, as I have been generous with my time? I am happy to be here and I am trying to answer hon. Members’ question as best I can.

I was a procurement professional for many years, and in preparing for today I have spoken to all the procurement professionals involved. We have to remember that they are highly trained, highly commercial, highly professional and highly regulated, and that they have an independent process that Ministers do not get involved with. I have only been a Minister for just under two years, but I can confirm that that is the procurement process.

[Dawn Butler]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Gillian Keegan]

I do not need any help on the procurement process.

I can confirm that no exception was made for Randox. Of course, Ministers have a role in understanding what is happening with contracts. We have calls and meetings with our commercial partners to find out what challenges they are facing, to drive them to go as fast as they can and to hold them to the commitments that they have made. Such meetings are only natural, but they are nothing to do with the actual contracts; they are to do with delivery and holding our partners to account on their commitments, as is only natural. We have behaved exactly as hon. Members would expect from a responsible Government operating in a national crisis.

The Government do not intend to vote against this Humble Address. We will review what information we hold in scope and—in answer to the question from the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) —we will define the scope. We will come back to Parliament and deposit the information in the Libraries, in line with the Government’s established stance on responses to Humble Addresses.

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[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

I think we all agree that the Minister today has been given a hard gig, coming to the Chamber today. I hope she will not allow the Government’s approach to ruin her good reputation.

I want to pick up on some of the points the Minister mentioned in her contribution to the House today. She spoke about the National Audit Office. Let me be clear about what it actually said. It said that not all the paperwork it needed was present to enable it to follow the trail of contracts that had been issued. That means that the NAO did not have the information it needed to give a full and correct report.

Let me give the House an example of some of the companies given contracts. They say “awarded”, but really, if there is no other competition, they are just given it. Topham Guerin is one such company. The company worked for the Tory party during the 2019 general election. An independent body found that 88% of its adverts between 1 December and 4 December contained misleading information. One might think that that would preclude it from being given a contract, right? If a company had been found to have produced information that was 88% misleading, we might think it would not be seen anywhere near Government. But no. Instead, it was “awarded” a £3 million contract and attended meetings at No. 10. When I asked the then Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), about it in the Science and Technology Committee, he could not tell me what on earth it did. It got that money and was then awarded another contract on top of that.

The NAO also said in its report that a company was put into the VIP lane by mistake. A company was put into this magical VIP lane by mistake. One would have thought that that mistake would have been found, but no. That company—a company that was put into the VIP lane by mistake—went on to get a £350 million contract. That is why we need transparency. At the end of the day, people outside this place are asking questions about what is going on inside it. They do not understand it, I do not understand it, and there are people in the Government who are trying to hide what is happening.

There are civil servants who have been at their wits’ end. They have whistleblown. The NAO report cites civil servants who raised concerns all the way through the procurement process, asking why we were paying over the odds for PPE. Even at the higher rate, we were paying over the odds for it.

Questions were raised about Samir Jassal, who is a friend of the Home Secretary. He was acting as a middleman, writing emails to the then Health Secretary saying, “Hey Matt, you’ve been most helpful previously”—very, very familiar. He went on to get some money for a company, which went from being valued at £200 to £10 million.

There are serious questions to be answered. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) said earlier, we either have to clean up or cover up. I hope that this is the beginning of a process to clean up.

I agree with those people who say that we have to learn the lessons. In the beginning of the pandemic—in January last year—a lot was being thrown at us, but by September 2020, we knew better. On 17 September 2020, in the Science and Technology Committee, I asked why we gave a £133 million testing contract, unopposed, to Randox when it disposed of more than 12,000 used swabs in a single day and voided more than 35,000 used test kits in a few months. Not only did the company do that, but it had the cheek to charge us for it. It threw away some of the tests—it did not do those tests—and then it charged us for that, so we were still paying for all its mistakes. How is that good business—this is basic—and how is that good procurement? How is that a good contract? It just is not. It is wrong and, frankly, it is corrupt. Baroness Harding said that she could not “confirm or deny” what happened. Again, that speaks volumes.

Randox employed the former MP, Owen Paterson, on over £500 an hour. When I asked Baroness Harding what he did, she said:

“I am afraid you would have to ask Owen Paterson rather than me.”

He was not going to tell me, and she was not going to tell me, but I sure know that the Government should be able to tell me, because at the end of the day, as we said earlier—he was a former Minister in Government—every single meeting should have been logged. There should be minutes of those meetings and they should be made public.

We are way down the road now. This Government were obsessed with centralisation, as opposed to decentralisation. We knew very early on that a local approach was better and was producing results in the 24 hours that we needed them in to help us to stem the pandemic, yet the Government were still obsessed with a centralised approach because they could hide behind the cloak of the pandemic. They could make sure that their mates got money and that the companies were given contracts that they were not suitable for. A company in my constituency, Medical Diagnosis Ltd, was not even given a look-in to provide any of the services. Local GPs and local pharmacies all wanted to be involved but they could not be because the Government were obsessed with a centralised system where they could hide behind the cloak of the pandemic. The time for hiding has come to an end.

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

This is a vital moment for everyone who cares about democracy, transparency, stemming the waste and abuse of public money and improving the way that our country responds to future crises. I find it extraordinary that, on a matter of such national significance, there was not a single Conservative Member on the list to speak during this debate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) damningly stated, this was the worst such situation that he had seen since he came into Parliament in 1979, when I was at the very tender age of just one year old.

Let us recall the reasons why we are here today. Randox paid Owen Paterson over £8,000 a month to lobby on its behalf. Mr Paterson then sat in on a call between Randox and Lord Bethell, the Health Minister responsible for handing out Government contracts, and Randox landed Government contracts worth more than half a billion pounds without any kind of proper tender process. There was no competition, just deals done behind closed doors, with discussions between a Government Minister, a Conservative MP and the company paying him handsomely to hawk its wares around the corridors of power. That tells us everything we need to know about how this Conservative Government go about their business.

But the situation with Randox is even more disturbing because of what happened next, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) set out very ably. After pocketing £133 million of public money to carry out covid testing, Randox failed to deliver, so in the middle of an unprecedented national crisis, we witnessed an unedifying spectacle: the Health Secretary sending the begging bowl around our universities asking to borrow equipment, just so Randox could deliver what it promised.

I echo what so many Opposition Members have said: the Minister has a very positive reputation on this side of the House, but my word, she has been given a hospital pass today. I regret that the hole in which she was placed has become larger, rather than smaller, during this debate.

[Dawn Butler]

There was a point about Randox that I neglected to mention. Is it not true that it failed to meet every single target that it was set, and yet, it was still awarded another contract six months later? That is unbelievable.

[Anneliese Dodds]

Many thanks to my hon. Friend; she is absolutely right that we have seen failure upon failure upon failure to meet the targets that were set, as she knows very well from her experience in this place and her focus on health matters. I find it extraordinary that the process of the Health Secretary having to call on others so that Randox could deliver what it had promised was described as an example of the “triple helix”. I remember those days very well. I remember academics begging the Government to come to them because they said that they could deliver the testing that our country needed. Were they listened to? We all know what happened: they were not listened to—they were ignored when our country needed that testing. This was an example not of collaboration, but of outsourcing that failed spectacularly on the Conservatives’ watch.

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[Maggie Throup]

I visited Nottingham University recently to see the amazing work being done there. Obviously, continued support for our universities is imperative. I know that they do amazing work, as do our hospital laboratories.

We should celebrate these achievements, not criticise them. I want to reassure the House that there have always been strong safeguards behind these contracts, and that they are awarded in accordance with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. We monitor all contracts and suppliers closely, as would be expected. We judge them against key performance indicators, and we publish contract award notices for all the contracts awarded to provide test and trace services, consistent with the regulatory requirements.

[Dawn Butler]

It seems as though the Minister may have missed the whole debate and just come in at the end, because she has failed to take up some of the conversations that we have had during the debate. Can she confirm that the public did not pay for the test kits that Randox threw away?

[Maggie Throup]

Obviously those details were in the contracts, but I am sure that they conformed with the key performance indicators.

All the contract award notices can be seen on Contracts Finder. We have nothing to hide, Madam Deputy Speaker —nothing at all. The House, and the public, can see what taxpayers’ money has been spent on. We have applied exactly the same criteria, standards and processes in the case of Randox as we have in all other cases. Randox has never been an exception, and we utterly reject the idea that it has received any kind of special treatment. Our partnership with Randox is simply a reflection of the situation in which we found ourselves in March 2020, facing a global pandemic of unknown and unprecedented proportions and acting as a responsible Government should. We worked against genuine fears that we would run out of vital testing equipment, that we would not have the capacity to test people and that the deadly virus might continue to spread from person to person, silent and undetected.

We engaged with Randox and many others. Not only was Randox a UK-based business, but its early laboratory-based PCR testing capacity for covid-19 was capacity that we have been able to use for the whole of the UK. We have fought this pandemic as one United Kingdom. Working with Randox was the right thing to do, it was the responsible thing to do and, quite simply, it was a decision that has saved many thousands of lives.

I will address one issue brought up by a couple of Opposition Members, and reassure them that Arco was awarded contracts for PPE. I thank Arco for its contribution in providing life-saving PPE that we needed at that time.