Johnson government wasted ‘vast’ sums on PPE, Covid inquiry finds

The Covid-19 inquiry chair, Heather Hallett, also criticised the then government’s controversial “VIP lane”, which gave high priority for PPE contracts to companies with political connections to the Tories.

The most high-profile scandal of the VIP lane contracts was PPE Medpro, a newly formed company linked to the then Conservative peer Michelle Mone, which was awarded two contracts worth £203m after Mone first approached Michael Gove, the then Cabinet Office minister, in May 2020.

The inquiry did hear evidence relating to PPE Medpro, and Lady Hallett, a former court of appeal judge, has reached findings, but they are not yet being published due to a long-running investigation by the National Crime Agency into the procurement of the contracts. Hallett’s findings will only be published after the conclusion of any criminal proceedings.

“The ‘high priority lane’, also known as the ‘VIP lane’, was a misguided attempt to give priority to the most credible offers,” Hallett said in her report, concluding that it “embedded unfairness” in the procurement. “Some suppliers received favourable treatment because they had connections to government,” she found, “undermining public trust at a moment when it was needed most.”

The waste of PPE procured as the crisis hit – mainly from manufacturers in China – was widely reported within months, as it piled up and began to be disposed of. “The UK entered the pandemic with an inadequate stockpile of PPE and plans that had never been stress-tested,” Hallett said.

“The waste of public money was vast and could have been avoided. Of approximately £14.9bn spent on PPE, nearly two-thirds – almost £10bn – was wasted.”

Hallett’s report says £4.2bn was paid by the government on “VIP lane” PPE contracts.

Pete Weatherby KC, a lawyer for Covid Bereaved Families for Justice (CBFFJ), which represents about 7,000 people whose relatives died during the pandemic, called during the hearings on procurement in March 2025 for “scrutiny as to whether cronyism, unfair advantage and corruption allowed chancers to make fabulous profits at the expense of all of us, the bereaved, the key workers”.

The then health secretary, Matt Hancock, and other ministers defended the VIP lane at the inquiry, arguing it enabled the government to prioritise credible offers.

Theodore Agnew, a Cabinet Office minister at the time, told the inquiry it was “bollocks” to suggest the VIP lane was “some kind of plan by rightwing people trying to enrich themselves”.

Hallett concluded that the inquiry “has not identified cronyism or corruption on the part of ministers and officials in final contracting decisions”. But, she said: “The ‘high priority’ lane should not have been established and must not be repeated.”

Hallett said: “Although it was not intended, the system was inherently biased towards those with connections to the UK government. This heightened the risk of abuse.”

In a damning report, Hallett found the nation’s stockpile of PPE and other vital healthcare equipment was inadequate at the start of the pandemic, and doctors, healthcare and care workers could not protect themselves or those for whom they were caring from infection.

Members of the CBFFJ told the inquiry they believed inadequate PPE and equipment was a factor in their relatives’ contracting Covid and dying. In advance of the report, the group said of the government’s procurement failures and the VIP lane: “For bereaved families, these were not abstract failures of administration. Many believe their loved ones died, at least in part, because health and care services lacked the equipment, supplies and systems needed to keep patients and staff safe.

“What makes these failures even harder to bear is that some well-connected individuals and companies were making enormous profits from these same failures.”

Hallett agreed that patients and care home residents were put at risk in the deadliest early period of the pandemic, concluding that the UK’s PPE stockpile was “in a perilous state” and the UK was “simply not ready to compete” in the frantic global rush to buy healthcare equipment, although she praised the public, businesses and the UK’s life sciences and advanced manufacturing sectors for rallying “enthusiastically” to help.

“As the pandemic worsened, many doctors, nurses and care sector staff worked without adequate PPE or sufficient healthcare equipment such as ventilators,” she said. “This left them unable to properly protect themselves, or those in their care, from dangerous infection.”

In her report, Hallett made 11 recommendations for ensuring that the rushed scramble for vital healthcare equipment, enormous waste of public money, and government procurement favouring politically connected companies were not repeated in any future pandemic.

The recommendations included investing in British advanced manufacturing, improving pandemic stockpile management, “radically overhauling” the necessary supply chain and emergency procurement systems, and “improving transparency, governance and accountability in emergency procurement, so that the public can be confident that money is being spent with propriety and fairness”.

Hallett concluded: “A better prepared emergency procurement system will reduce the cost of obtaining essential supplies and save lives.”