Revealed: The billion-pound PPE contractor with a Tory MP on website

[ad_1] W hen Mrs Justice Cockerill handed down her judgment within the excessive courtroom in opposition to PPE Medpro, the corporate linked to the Conservative peer Michelle Mone, for supplying unsafe private protecting tools through the pandemic, her findings have been a landmark in a five-year saga that solid the opaque world of presidency deal making into stark mild.

PPE Medpro was ordered to refund the complete £122m that the Division of Well being and Social Care (DHSC) paid for unusable robes in the summertime of 2020, as Boris Johnson’s authorities scrambled to refill the UK’s depleted shares.

However Cockerill’s 87-page judgment additionally supplied an intriguing glimpse into one other firm whose contracts, with a mixed worth of £1.4bn, dwarfed the PPE Medpro offers, a agency a lot much less well-known that even a politician concerned within the offers couldn't bear in mind its identify.

To individuals accustomed to the frantic multibillion pound spending of public cash and the “VIP lane” for politically related corporations searching for PPE contracts, it was jolting that Cockerill discovered this agency was additionally at fault within the provide of unusable PPE. Its identify is Uniserve.

Uniserve was an enormous winner of contracts because it turned key to the federal government’s shopping for of huge portions of PPE from China. A longtime logistics firm based mostly within the suburban city of Upminster, close to the border between Larger London and Essex, it's owned by its founder and managing director, Iain Liddell.

The DHSC commissioned Uniserve early within the pandemic to move ventilators to the UK, which developed right into a “freight contract” for bringing PPE from China, and in the end ran from 31 March 2020 by means of to December 2021, paying the corporate £573m.

Uniserve is a well-established logistics firm based mostly in Upminster. {Photograph}: MediaWorldImages/Alamy Liddell moved rapidly into providing to produce PPE immediately and Uniserve was awarded seven contracts price £304m, processed by means of the VIP lane. Altogether, for an array of Covid contracts, the DHSC paid Uniserve a complete of £1.4bn.

The freight contract concerned Uniserve delivery the robes equipped by PPE Medpro, the corporate owned by Mone’s husband, the Isle of Man-based businessman Doug Barrowman. This introduced Uniserve into the scope of Cockerill’s deliberations.

In her judgment, Cockerill concluded that the contract required Uniserve to examine the PPE Medpro robes in China, earlier than they have been shipped. She stated there was a “diploma of doubt” about whether or not Uniserve ever did conduct inspections. No matter course of was adopted, it failed to identify the obvious fault with the robes’ technical labelling, which indicated they weren't licensed to be sterile.

Crucially, the DHSC needed to pay for the robes once they have been authorized for delivery, so the federal government paid the complete £122m to PPE Medpro with no efficient inspection having been carried out.

It was solely after the robes arrived in England {that a} vigilant public well being official, Zarah Naeem, inspected and noticed the invalid labelling, and the robes have been rejected. Regardless of profitable the courtroom battle, the DHSC faces difficulties recovering the hundreds of thousands it paid, as a result of no funds have been left in PPE Medpro, which is now in administration.

If the robes had been inspected in China by Uniserve because the choose thought of they need to have been, the cargo could by no means have set sail, and the taxpayer could not have paid to PPE Medpro the cash ministers at the moment are scrambling to get well.

The Guardian requested Liddell about Uniserve’s alleged failure of inspection within the judgment and he replied by means of attorneys, claiming that the choose was mistaken. Liddell stated the DHSC had not required Uniserve to hold out high quality management inspections on the related time and solely added this to the freight contract in late August 2020. The DHSC’s barrister, Paul Stanley KC, appeared to help that place in courtroom, saying Uniserve had subcontracted manufacturing facility collections in China and depicting the operation as a “Chinese language truck driver” not versed in European PPE security rules.

If that's appropriate – and the revealed freight contract seems to help Liddell’s place – it factors to a a lot larger procurement concern: huge authorities spending with out primary checks for high quality.

Chris Smith, a procurement advisor who works with Transparency Worldwide within the UK Anti-Corruption Coalition (UKACC), has calculated that the DHSC paid £9.35bn for PPE throughout these first 4 months earlier than inspections started. The DHSC subsequently reported it had paid £3.3bn for PPE that was unusable within the NHS.

A query of entry Uniserve’s outstanding accumulation of presidency contracts did entice public scrutiny on the time, together with reporting by the Guardian. A central query was how the corporate got here to the eye of ministers, who would log off on contracts of such monumental worth.

The DHSC stated later that the Conservative peer Theodore Agnew was the politician who launched Uniserve to the VIP lane. Agnew, a former Metropolis finance govt, was one among a number of new ministers, headed by Michael Gove, appointed to the Cupboard Workplace in Johnson’s reshuffle of February 2020.

Agnew didn't reply to the Guardian’s invites to remark for this text, however he was requested about Uniserve on the Covid public inquiry in March. He described himself because the “godparent” of the VIP lane saying, as different former ministers have, that fast-tracking corporations referred by politicians and officers was a approach to prioritise credible affords. Remarkably, contemplating the massive public cash paid to Uniserve and the corporate’s key position within the authorities’s pandemic response, Agnew appeared to know little or no about it.

“Was Iain Liddell someone that you simply knew personally, or by means of political connections or in any other case?” Anna Morris KC requested. “No, I imply, I don’t even know what Uniserve is,” Agnew replied. “What's it? What's it?”

'I do not even know what Uniserve is' Theodore Agnew tells Covid inquiry – video One politician who does know the corporate higher is Julia Lopez, the Conservative MP for Upminster. Lopez is near Uniserve – actually: her constituency workplace was on the corporate’s website, in impact, Liddell is the MP’s landlord.

In June 2018, Lopez posted concerning the firm enthusiastically on social media, pictured with Liddell in hi-vis jackets, describing Uniserve as “the UK’s primary unbiased logistics and world commerce administration supplier”.

The query has all the time been requested as as to whether she was concerned in Uniserve being awarded PPE contracts. Lopez was additionally newly appointed to the Cupboard Workplace in February 2020, though she was on maternity depart till June.

<figure id="dac7e6f1-decb-4d39-bd26-50354d74f69e" class="element element-interactive element--inline element-inline dcr-w422y2" data-alt="Map showing Julia Lopez’s constituency office next to Uniserve’s head office on their site" data-testid="interactive-element-Map%20showing%20Julia%20Lopez%E2%80%99s%20constituency%20office%20next%20to%20Uniserve%E2%80%99s%20head%20office%20on%20their%20site" data-spacefinder-role="inline">Map displaying Julia Lopez’s constituency workplace subsequent to Uniserve’s head workplace on their website In 2020, Liddell and the Cupboard Workplace denied that the reference to Lopez performed a job in Uniserve being awarded contracts. The Guardian requested Liddell then if he was “ever involved with Julia Lopez MP relating to bidding for these [government Covid] contracts”.

“No,” Liddell replied, “Uniserve or Mr Liddell have been by no means involved with Julia Lopez relating to bidding for these contracts.”

The Cupboard Workplace stated on the time: “Minister Julia Lopez [was] not concerned within the procurement of those contracts.”

The Guardian additionally requested Liddell if he or Uniserve have been ever involved with some other member of the federal government or officers, in relation to securing the Covid contracts.

Liddell replied: “No. Uniserve and Mr Liddell have been contacted by the [DHSC’s] emergency PPE staff and Uniserve needed to undergo … the method all suppliers of PPE and companies needed to undergo.”

Julia Lopez MP, left, touring one among Uniserve’s warehouses in a clip from her web site. {Photograph}: julialopez.co.uk In Might 2021, Liddell replied to a letter from Meg Hillier, the chair of the general public accounts committee (PAC), which was conducting an inquiry into PPE procurement and the VIP lane. She requested if he had submitted his provide to produce PPE by means of the DHSC’s “regular course of”, or “by means of different routes (for examples by means of a minister, MP or senior official)?”.

Liddell replied in written proof that the DHSC had approached Uniserve first, then it awarded the corporate extra contracts as a result of Uniserve “demonstrated our experience” and delivered on it.

“For the avoidance of doubt,” Liddell wrote, “Uniserve has not sought to market its companies to authorities through ministers, MPs or senior officers.”

Into the VIP lane Throughout the years since, campaigning by the Covid Bereaved Households for Justice (CBFFJ), which represents 7,000 households whose relations died of the virus, was instrumental in pressuring Johnson to arrange a public inquiry into his authorities’s dealing with of the pandemic.

The inquiry allotted time to procurement and, whereas it didn't look at the Uniserve contracts intimately, the CBFFJ and UKACC raised questions, which prompted some proof to be supplied for the primary time.

A civil servant who labored carefully with Uniserve, Jonathan Arrowsmith, made a written assertion, which has given some insights into how the corporate was steered into the VIP lane.

Liddell’s attorneys stated the DHSC’s first request got here on 22 March 2020 and the corporate was requested owing to a private connection, as a senior DHSC official had beforehand labored with a Uniserve director, in 2009. Arrowsmith’s proof reveals that after this primary fee, Liddell pushed to offer extra companies, together with supplying PPE immediately, and contacted many ministers and officers.

On 26 March 2020, a civil servant in Johnson’s workplace launched Liddell to Steve Oldfield, the DHSC’s business director-general, saying: “Uniserve have been working with DHSC to date on PPE provides, however there’s positively much more nationally and internationally that they may do to assist.”

Liddell then instructed Oldfield that Uniserve had “nice assets and capabilities throughout air, highway and sea freight,” including: “I'm certain we will contribute an unlimited quantity to the provision chain effort getting PPE and any items to the place you want them.”

Arrowsmith referred in his assertion to an e-mail chain throughout the Cupboard Workplace that referred to Uniserve, “commencing with an e-mail from Iain Liddell” of two April 2020. The e-mail chain contained “a reference to Iain Liddell’s constituency member of parliament”, requested if there had been an “escalation” of Uniserve, and proposed checking with “Lord Agnew’s non-public workplace”. The emails themselves haven't been made public.

Two days later, in one other e-mail chain, Max Cairnduff, a senior civil servant, was apparently responding to considerations that Uniserve was a “VIP alternative” not being processed rapidly sufficient. Uniserve was stated to have contacted “a number of ministers”.

Agnew was then named the “VIP hyperlink” for Uniserve in Cupboard Workplace spreadsheets on 13 and 14 April 2020. Uniserve was awarded the primary three PPE contracts, price a complete £87m, on 14 April.

Final week, the Guardian requested Lopez if she was the constituency MP referred to within the April 2020 e-mail chain.

She replied that maybe it referred to not her however the MP for the place Liddell lived, and he or she stated: “I performed no position within the private suggestion, referral or award of any contract to Uniserve … Any suggestion that I used to be personally concerned within the business preferment or development of Uniserve can be false.”

Nevertheless, two days later, Liddell revealed for the primary time that he did contact Lopez within the run-up to the PPE contracts being awarded. His attorneys stated he emailed her on 2 April 2020 – an admission that seems to recommend a hyperlink between Uniserve, its tenant Conservative MP and its VIP lane referral.

Liddell despatched the e-mail “to complain about difficulties in relation to [PPE] provide proposals … and delays which Mr Liddell felt could price lives”.

Lopez then declined to elucidate whether or not she acted on Liddell’s e-mail, or why she had by no means talked about it. A Conservative occasion spokesperson replied on her behalf, saying: “Mrs Lopez had no involvement in any procurement determination by the federal government. Mrs Lopez was on maternity depart on the time and authorities ministers weren't concerned in operational selections.”

In Might 2020, Arrowsmith referred Uniserve to the VIP, “excessive precedence” lane, though the corporate was already on it by then. Liddell had turn out to be “more and more vocal and important concerning the course of”, Arrowsmith stated, and “pissed off that his affords weren't being processed rapidly sufficient”.

Liddell requested his provide to produce face masks be “put by means of the quick observe and excessive quantity approval course of”. His attorneys stated he was not conscious on the time that there was a chosen VIP lane. Arrowsmith stated Uniserve was referred to the high-priority lane “partly, to placate the rising frustrations of Iain Liddell”. But in addition, he stated, “Uniserve had established themselves as a really credible associate who have been making credible affords.”

‘Don't provide’ In 2022, it emerged that PPE price £178.5m supplied by Uniserve was in an inventory deemed “don't provide”. The DHSC, even below Labour, nonetheless claims business confidentiality over such PPE contract questions and declined to offer details about Uniserve. Liddell indicated that the £178.5m of PPE was by no means used, however insisted that it handed high quality requirements.

The federal government Covid contracts spectacularly boosted Uniserve financially; its accounts for the 15 months to 30 June 2020 present revenues nearly tripled to £562m, pre-tax earnings elevated sevenfold to £46m. Within the subsequent 18 months to 31 December 2021, turnover doubled once more to £1.4bn, earnings grew to £144m.

In a press release, Liddell stated: “Our engagement with the DHSC was based mostly on our longstanding experience in worldwide logistics … Contracts have been awarded on the premise of confirmed efficiency and functionality to ship, not on the premise of political connection.

“Uniserve helped ship over 44bn models of PPE and very important tools to the UK. I'm happy with the position Uniserve performed in delivering very important PPE when and wherever the nation wanted it most through the unprecedented and unsure Covid-19 pandemic.”

Liddell’s attorneys stated he stood by his unique solutions to the Guardian and the PAC, and that Uniserve submitted its bids for contracts “by means of the correct channels”.

On 18 March this yr, Gove and Agnew gave their proof to the Covid inquiry. Gove described Agnew as a “hero” for the work he did. Agnew stated the federal government did its finest within the circumstances and stated it was “bollocks” to recommend the VIP lane was a “heinous plan to counterpoint just a few of our mates … This was not some form of plan, rightwing individuals making an attempt to counterpoint themselves”.

Morris, the CBFFJ’s barrister, requested Agnew why he launched Uniserve into the VIP lane.

“Had been you conscious that they'd no observe document within the provide of PPE?”

“No,” Agnew replied, “however we used lots of people who didn’t, as a result of we needed to go wherever we may. However I had no relationship with them.”

“OK, so if that’s appropriate,” Morris requested, “on what foundation did you think about their affords merited pressing or precedence consideration throughout the VIP lane?”

“I can’t bear in mind,” Agnew replied.

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