Randox Covid Contracts

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alexander Stafford]

I am just surprised that the Opposition Benches are empty for an Opposition day debate when so many people claim that they want to discuss the issue. It is your debate. Perhaps you could explain where your Back Benchers are? I am intrigued because your side called it. Do they really care?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Now that the hon. Gentleman has properly intervened and addressed the House not from a sedentary position, I can officially hear him, and I will just make it clear that he should not say “you”. The substance of what he says is not a matter for me, but he should not say “you”.

[Alexander Stafford]

Apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

We have had quite a lot of that today, including during Prime Minister’s questions. Just do not do it. Let us try to keep to the rules.

[Tony Lloyd]

Quite right, Madam Deputy Speaker. In fact, had you not said that, I would have defended you, in that it is certainly not your debate, except in so far as it belongs to the House and, importantly, to the country, because that is what matters in this issue. It matters that the public have an opportunity to know what went on during this whole saga.

I want to talk briefly about the VIP fast-track situation. In November 2020, I approached Health Ministers about a constituent’s company, Jones & Brooks, which is a printing company that has printed extensively for the national health service. This was at the same time as the VIP fast-track structure was coming in. So good was the VIP fast-track structure for me as an Opposition Member of Parliament that it took me until, I think, July this year to get a proper response, and that was only when I insisted on meeting the Minister for Health, the hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar). To give him credit, once this was brought firmly to his attention—I had done it many times—I got an answer. It was the answer I did not want: my constituent’s company did not get any joy from that exchange. However, what a world of difference there is between companies that can talk to Ministers, be put on a VIP fast track and have the opportunity to be awarded contracts—with or without proper surveillance by those in charge—and those, as in the case of my company, that are given no such consideration.

The Minister for Care and Mental Health has to take that on board because procurement does matter. The opportunity for people to engage in the procurement process matters, because one of the many ways of tilting the weighing scales of life is simply not to allow people even to be in the bidding process. That does matter, and it is the difference between those on the VIP structure and those such as Jones & Brooks and my constituent Ronnie Blair, who were not even allowed to get to the starting blocks. It does matter, because that is actually low-level corruption.

Ronnie Blair, the managing director of Jones & Brooks, offered me no money, and I would not have taken any money anyway. Maybe that is where it goes wrong: if there is no money changing hands, maybe it does not oil the wheels of procurement. That is an outrageous thing for me to say, and it would be much worse were it true. However, it is true, because we know that Owen Paterson was paid, we know that Owen Paterson broke the lobbying rules and we know that Owen Paterson got access to Ministers, but we do not know what difference getting that access to Ministers made. That is the missing link in this whole sad jigsaw. There are so many things we do not know.

Yes, I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister has now moved a long way on this issue. I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister, who two weeks ago was trying to cover up this scandal and this saga of corruption, is now in favour of openness. That is good. The Minister told us earlier that the Government would not vote against the Opposition motion today, and again that is genuine process. However, you—not you, Madam Deputy Speaker, but the Government—are in the slow learner’s lane on this. The public want to see real alacrity, real commitment and belief that things are going to be sorted out, because we have to get to the bottom of this.

The issue of the noble Lord Bethell is now central. We know that Randox was awarded huge sums of public money—half a billion pounds of public money, which is an enormous amount of money. That may or may not be legitimate vis-à-vis the crisis we faced, but we do know that it failed, with 750,000 tests, to deliver a product that actually worked. That is enormously important, and it is enormously important to know why, after that experience, we saw another contract being awarded to the same company, which could not do the work.

That matters, and the public need reassurance that that was not as a result of the weighing scales of life being altered unfairly in Randox’s favour. In the end, we are not talking about something trivial; we are talking about public safety and, in the case of covid, public life and death. The wrong tests could give results that led to people dying, so again this is not a trivial matter that we can simply sweep under the carpet, as other hon. Members have said.

The position of noble Lord Bethell is fundamental on this. The Minister told me that she did not know whether his phone calls were minuted by departmental officials. If they were not, that is outrageous. Being in a crisis is no excuse. There was no crisis in the Minister’s office and there was no crisis meaning that a civil servant could not be on the phone call, and that is simply the way things ought to have been done. We need to know whether those calls were minuted. If any call was not minuted, there is a real problem, because we do not know what other calls the noble Lord Bethell engaged in. That matters because there may be some things we shall never know from a noble Lord who is so, shall we say, casual in his acquaintanceship with his telephone. [Laughter.] It really does matter, because while I am grateful to my hon. Friends for laughing, it would be funny if it were not so serious.

The questions that the noble Lord Bethell has to answer are those that the Government have to answer. It is good that the Minister is committed to ensuring that the scope is properly identified, and I welcome what she said. The motion before the House defines that scope, but the commitment that the Government will honour it is fundamental, and if it is not discharged, that would be outrageous. If it is not honoured that will probably not be the Minister’s decision, but I hope she will take back the message that her reputation is sullied if others refuse to allow this investigation process to be completed.

We have to know what took place. The only way we can give the public confidence in our public life, in politicians, and in public procurement, is if they have a guarantee that when things go right they really have gone right, and that when they go wrong, we will dig and dig until we see what went wrong. We must ensure that those responsible are no longer in that position, and that as far as we can prevent them, such things will never happen again. This situation matters. It is about public money—enormous amounts of public money—but in the end, it is about public wellbeing, life and death.

I suffered from covid. I was in hospital from covid. I saw doctors, nurses and hospital staff of all kinds coming forward when I had covid, and taking the risk that, without proper PPE at the time, I would give it to them. That was early in the whole process, and we may come to the conclusion that such risk was unavoidable. I am very grateful to those who treated me and saved my life, but I am concerned that nobody else should have lost their life because of a dodgy procurement contract. That is why this matters. We have to know.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maggie Throup]

I reiterate that Arco was awarded contracts for PPE.

Of course, that does not mean there are no lessons to be learned, and I can reassure the hon. Member for Blackburn (Kate Hollern) that the public inquiry will be an important learning moment for us all. We are already making changes: we published our procurement Green Paper last December, we updated our commercial guidance on the management of actual and perceived conflicts of interest in May, and we are implementing the recommendations from the first and second Boardman reviews into improving procurement.

The real lessons, however, are just what we can achieve when we all get behind a shared mission, to protect the British people and to protect the NHS. That is a mission-driven way of working that has seen us work beyond the traditional boundaries and achieve remarkable results. We have tested millions of people for covid-19 and kept millions more safe. I am very proud of that, and so too, I believe, are the British people.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, that she will be graciously pleased to give directions that there be laid before this House the minutes from or any notes of the meeting of 9 April 2020 between Lord Bethell, Owen Paterson and Randox representatives, and all correspondence, including submissions and electronic communications, addressed or copied to, or written by or on behalf of, any or all of the following:

(a) a Minister or former Minister of the Crown,

(b) a Special Adviser of such a Minister or former Minister, or

(c) a Member or former Member of this House

relating to the Government contracts for services provided by medical laboratories, awarded to Randox Laboratories Ltd. by the Department for Health and Social Care, reference tender_237869/856165 and CF-0053400D0O000000rwimUAA1, valued at £133,000,000 and £334,300,000-£346,500,000 respectively.

Royal Assent

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that Her Majesty has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Telecommunications (Security) Act 2021

Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Act 2021.