Union leaders: End scandal of PPE bandit capitalism

The awarding of PPE contracts during the pandemic was blighted by “bandit capitalism”   that must never be repeated, according to union leaders.

Health unions and care home organisations said Scotland’s public inquiry into the official response to Covid must expose failures in the procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE) during the pandemic to prevent future scandals.

They spoke out as new details emerged of the £202-million contracts given to a company linked to Scots peer and businesswoman Michelle Mone. She had lobbied for the firm, PPE Medpro, to be included in a so-called VIP lane, allowing preferred bids to be fast-tracked, in private emails to ministers.

Louise Gilmour, Scotland secretary of the GMB union, said: “Let’s be clear, in the first wave of this pandemic carers were left waiting weeks for proper PPE guidance from the government, never mind actual provision, care employers locked meagre supplies in cupboards, and only one-fifth of ambulance staff had been issued with the proper PPE.

“The government should learn from its failures by investing in domestic supply chains for the manufacture and provision of PPE supplies to our health and social care sectors and underpin this with rigorous legislation to curb the spread of bandit capitalism.”

The Financial Times yesterday reported how HSBC froze bank accounts linked to Mone and her husband, Douglas Barrowman, another Scot, during an investigation into the contracts given to PPE Medpro in 2020.

Contradicting her husband, Mone told the bank she advised government ministers on procurement while complaining the frozen accounts were damaging the firm, despite publicly insisting she had no connection with it.

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A leaked copy of the bank’s inquiry report suggests £65 million of PPE Medpro profits were moved to an Isle of Man-registered trust that solely benefits Barrowman. Obtained by the Guardian, the reports suggests that £46m went into Barrowman’s personal bank account. From there, £29m was apparently moved to another offshore trust, this time benefiting Mone and her children.

The contracts won by PPE Medro are coming under scrutiny as Scotland’s Covid inquiry prepares to study the supply, distribution and use of PPE.

Roz Foyer, general secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress, voiced deepening concern over how the procurement process was conducted and the impact on the provision of quality PPE to frontline workers.

She said: “During the pandemic there were a lot of issues with the supply of PPE and the quality of that supply. There were workers right across our health and care services who had real difficulty ­getting the right standard of PPE.

“We had reps in the care sector who bought PPE themselves to give out to members. That was wholly unacceptable. It is no surprise that people who worked in social care occupations had higher rates of death involving Covid when compared with the wider population.

“We remain deeply concerned about the fact that due diligence on suppliers wasn’t done at the time. No matter how urgent things were, it’s become very clear this VIP lane was an opportunity for friends of people at the top of the political tree to get very lucrative PPE contracts when they had little or no experience of how to provide the high standards that were required.

“That’s why we ended up with ­warehouses filled with unusable PPE that wasn’t of the standard that workers on the ground needed.”

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Norman Provan, associate director of the Royal College of Nursing Scotland, said: “The public inquiry must provide nursing staff with the opportunity to share their perspective on all aspects of the pandemic response, including the provision and quality of personal protective equipment, and to ensure that lessons are learned.”

Donald Macaskill, CEO of care home providers’ umbrella body Scottish Care, spoke of care home managers’ struggle to secure good-quality PPE during the pandemic. Macaskill said: “With so many new PPE companies with no track record of relationships or trust, it became very clear there were a lot of individuals who promised much and delivered little and there were individuals who were simply scammers.

“Care home providers did suffer from scams by allegedly bona fide PPE providers. So, the sheer multiplicity resulted in a diminishing of quality.

“What it added was a massively increased volume of stress on managers trying to access PPE, which previously would have been a fairly routine activity done once a month or once a fortnight.

“I spoke to managers who were ­spending two or three days, in the middle of a crisis, trying to get the right PPE.

“The second challenge was the cost of PPE, which became absolutely eye-watering. From paying tens of pence per item, it became paying pounds.

“From early April there was a route set up by the Scottish Government for emergency supply but the assumption remained that care home providers should buy their own PPE and utilise existing stock. Many care homes were not able to get access to PPE, or PPE at the quality that was necessary.”

Mone, 51, recommended PPE Medpro to government ministers, including Michael Gove, and it was placed in a high-priority group, or so-called VIP lane, for Covid contracts that were awarded without a competitive tendering process.

PPE Medpro, owned by Anthony Page, a business associate of Mone, procured millions of medical gowns for the NHS that were never used. The government has written off £10 billion worth of PPE that was deemed unfit for use, but PPE Medpro insists contract specifications were met. Mone denies benefiting financially from the firm or having any role in it.

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Properties linked to PPE Medpro have previously been searched by the National Crime Agency and it emerged in April that officers searched the Isle of Man home that Mone shares with her husband. The peer is also being investigated by the House of Lords Standards Commissioner, accused of failing to declare an interest in PPE Medpro.

Last week Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner MP accused the government of failing to carry out due diligence on PPE Medpro. She told the Commons: “In May 2020 PPE Medpro was set up and given £203m in government contracts after a referral from a Tory peer.

It now appears that tens of millions of pounds of that money ended up in offshore accounts connected to the individuals involved, profits made possible through the company’s personal connections to ministers and the Tories’ VIP lane that was declared illegal by the High Court.

Yet ministers are still refusing to publish correspondence relating to the award of the Medpro contract because, they say, the department is engaged in a mediation process.”

Rayner called for the government to release records relating to the award of the PPE Medro contract. Health minister Neil O’Brien said the high-priority group for PPE had no guarantee of a contract and 90% of bids were not successful. He also described the PPE Medpro contract as underperforming. Medical gowns provided by the company were rejected by the Department of Health and Social Care after a technical inspection carried out by officials.

For the past 10 months civil servants have been seeking to recoup money from the company for the unused gowns, through a dispute resolution process.

Mone has previously said she never had any role or function in the company, or in the process in which contracts were awarded. She took to social media last week to say: “Don’t believe everything you read, or everything you think.”

Lawyers for Mone said last week: “There are a number of reasons why our client cannot comment on these issues and she is under no duty to do so.”

A lawyer who represents Barrowman and PPE Medpro said yesterday a continuing investigation limited what his clients were able to say. He added: “For the time being we are also instructed to say there is much inaccuracy in the portrayal of the alleged ‘facts’ and a number of them are completely wrong.”

HSBC previously said it was unable to comment, even to confirm if the couple had been clients.