{"id":57808,"date":"2021-06-30T19:13:59","date_gmt":"2021-06-30T18:13:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=57808"},"modified":"2021-06-30T19:13:59","modified_gmt":"2021-06-30T18:13:59","slug":"yet-more-corruption-risk-comes-to-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2021\/06\/30\/yet-more-corruption-risk-comes-to-light\/","title":{"rendered":"Yet more corruption risk comes to light"},"content":{"rendered":"

I share this from the Good Law Project, just received:<\/p>\n

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Good Law Project<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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Dear Richard,Good Law Project can reveal the existence of a VIP lane for Test and Trace spend - and that 'VIP stakeholder engagement' was run from a private gmail address.<\/p>\n

We are today publishing emails<\/a> showing the existence of a \u201cfast-track\u201d for contacts of Ministers. One of those emails states: \u201cIf [offers] come from a minister\/private office then please put FASTTRACK at the beginning of the subject line.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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This evidence is corroborated by the LinkedIn account for the individual who advertised himself as the lead for \u201cVIP stakeholder engagement with Life Science Minister James Bethell\u201d.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Good Law Project can also reveal that the \u201cindustry secondee\u201d - a Mr Simon Greaves - used a private gmail address for his \u201cVIP stakeholder engagement.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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The National Audit Office has previously expressed concern<\/a> over the lack of transparency in relation to procurement decisions made in the PPE VIP lane. The revelation that key elements of VIP Test and Trace procurement were conducted using a private gmail address piles fuel on that fire.<\/p>\n

How could civil servants monitor discussions between Ministerial contacts and an industry secondee when they were taking place via private gmail addresses?<\/p>\n

Back in October, Good Law Project revealed<\/a> the red carpet-to-riches VIP lane that benefited so many associates of Ministers by helping them to win vast PPE contracts. This new evidence corroborates reports in November<\/a> from unnamed insiders that there was a VIP channel for testing supplies. The total spend on Test and Trace is \u00a337bn, dwarfing that for PPE.<\/p>\n

Responding to Good Law Project, Simon Greaves said: \u2018I used a DHSC email account and computer for the majority of my time...\u2019\u2019 but also confirmed he used his personal gmail account from his start date in April through to May.<\/p>\n

Good Law Project has also approached the DHSC for comment.<\/p>\n

Further questions need to be asked about how Government came to spend over \u00a33bn - without any competition - with Innova, whose testing kits have been described<\/a> by the US Food and Drug Administration as \u201cpresenting a risk to health\u201d and subject to \u201cthe most serious type of recall.\u201d Good Law Project understands extraordinary new revelations about Innova will emerge in the coming days.<\/p>\n

Thank you,<\/p>\n

Jo Maugham
\nDirector of Good Law Project<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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When will the risks of corruption end?<\/p>\n

I have fought corruption for a very long time now. I never expected \u00a0the risk to be so close to home, or that the government might be so exposed to that risk with such seeming indifference, let alone promotion of that risk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I share this from the Good Law Project, just received: Good Law Project Dear Richard,Good Law Project can reveal the existence of a VIP lane
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}