Starmer and Reeves just showed their asses AGAIN – this time, over dodgy PPE contracts

The chancellor has appointed a Special Covid Corruption Commissioner to look into billions of pounds in dodgy Covid contracts and PPE fraud. Meanwhile, Keir Starmer has appointed Chris Wormald as the government’s new cabinet secretary and head of the civil service. Previously, he was the top official from the Department for Health and Social Care, which oversaw the awarding of these very same dodgy Covid contracts.

Clearly, Starmer and Reeves need to have a chat:

Here are two jarring facts. The chancellor has just appointed a special Covid corruption commissioner to examine an eye-watering £7.6bn of dodgy and fraudulent contracts awarded for Covid equipment, and the PM has just appointed as cabinet secretary Chris Wormald, who is the top…

— Robert Peston (@Peston) December 3, 2024

Interesting – but aren’t you forgetting something Robert.
The designated VIP lane for procurement intentionally bypassed the normal scrutiny. https://t.co/9EQsHhVGkF

— Clare Hepworth OBE (@Hepworthclare) December 3, 2024

Pandemic PPE fraud

Rachel Reeves has appointed Tom Hayhoe as the new Covid Corruption Commissioner. He is set to investigate the fraud associated with £8.7bn of PPE purchased during the pandemic: 

The Labour Government has delivered on its promise to appoint a Covid Corruption Commissioner to recover billions lost to waste and fraud during the pandemic under the Tories.

That money belongs in our public services – and we want it back. pic.twitter.com/MQk5fPzrqA

— Rachel Reeves (@RachelReevesMP) December 3, 2024

As the BBC reported:

Tom Hayhoe’s first task will be reviewing the £8.7bn of PPE bought during the pandemic that then had to be written off the government’s books.

Mr Hayhoe is also likely to review the previous government’s abandoning of attempts to reclaim money from deals worth £674m.

It could mean greater scrutiny of the companies involved in supplying unusable PPE and raking in fortunes from taxpayer-funded government contracts.

Michelle Mone, we’re looking at you.

Of course, as some have already pointed out at this point it’s just another toothless truth-finding exercise. Reeves has said she wants him to:

recover the public money lost to fraud and underperforming contracts

However, it’s not clear how Reeves is intending for him to do this. The BBC explained that he would:

submit a report at the end of his contract with lessons and recommendations for government procurement in the face of future crises.

So as yet, there are sparse details on what recovering the cash will actually involve. Lords peer Prem Sikka is already suggesting it’s another glorified commission-style publicity stunt with little substance:

UK Covid corruption commissioner starts fraud probe.

First focus: £8.7bn of unusable PPE bought during the pandemic.

A gimmick to manage public opinion or will anyone be prosecuted – Grenfell, Leveson, infected blood, Post Office, banking crimes .. https://t.co/VEk1cMyFjr

— Prem Sikka (@premnsikka) December 3, 2024

Reportedly, Reeves will confirm his appointment on Tuesday 4 December at Treasury questions in the House of Commons.

We do wonder how many of the companies getting huge payouts for PPE even still exist.

Oversight

However, the lack of details on Hayhoe’s powers to recover these funds wasn’t even the most confounding part of all this. ITV’s Robert Peston (surprisingly for a stenographer) picked up on the glaring incongruity in Reeves’ announcement, as Starmer declared the new cabinet secretary Chris Wormald.

That would be Wormald, permanent secretary at the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) who – wait for it – would have overseen PPE contract awards.

Needless to say, Peston raised some pertinent questions for Starmer to answer. Like, what did the sleazebag PM ask Wormald “about his financial stewardship of DHSC during the job interview”.

What, pray tell, was Wormald’s response to:

how such spectacularly loss-making medical procurement – that has explicitly and repeatedly been described by Rachel Reeves as a scandal – happened on his watch, when he was the accounting officer?

Did he have to explain his way out of the mess? Or did he just drink coffee with Starmer and let someone else take the fall for him? What other reason could there be for Starmer now appointing him to head up the entire civil service?

Is it a worm?

Wormald shouldn’t have been able to worm his way out of responsibility quite so easily. After all, as Peston pointed out even the National Audit Office said the DHSC had written off £9.9bn on PPE.

And Wormald wasn’t involved in this? Get real.

Robert Peston’s post on X states:

And lest we forget, the country and the government were in panic mode during the early Covid months, so accidents were bound to happen, milk was inevitably going to be spilled.

Clearly though, he has a very short memory. The Tories literally set up a VIP lane to help their already rich pals. That took a lot of thought, effort, and planning. It’s not quite panic mode, is it Robert? Maybe the rest of the country was panicking, but the cronies in Downing Street most certainly weren’t:

Astonishing that a supposed political insider doesn’t remember that under Johnson, Cummings & Covid, the entire mission was to bypass normal processes and departmental rules, and as a result a VIP lane was created to hand our money direct to Tory chums. https://t.co/n6Mor9FglX

— Mike Holden (@MikeHolden42) December 3, 2024

If that didn’t crack open enough cans of Wormalds, his role during the pandemic itself definitely should.

PPE fraud: opening cans of Wormalds

The Covid Inquiry so far has revealed that Wormald agreed the government should infect everyone with Covid to build up immunity. He also briefed them on this very point according to WhatsApp disclosures between him and then cabinet sec Mark Sedwill:

According to The Times: 

Sedwill wrote that Boris Johnson had not understood yet that “presumably like chickenpox we want people to get it and develop herd immunity before the next wave”.

Sedwill added “we just want them not to get it all at once and preferably when it’s warn [sic] and dry etc”, to which Wormald responded: “Exactly right. We make the point every meeting, they don’t quite get it.”

Others have pointed the finger at Wormald for delays and waste in procuring PPE during the pandemic.

Obviously, as the inquiry continues, more could still come out:

Make it make sense… Starmer looking more and more like a Tory stooge each day… https://t.co/vDhJPAehJj

— Sabina Michnowicz (@SabMichnowicz) December 3, 2024

Reeves and Starmer’s announcements seem a little out of step – clearly they need to exchange phone numbers and try communicating before they tell the country their plans. In reality though, this just shows how Starmer’s Labour Party probably aren’t interested in holding the big companies and the bigwigs at the DHSC to account for their role in Covid fraud.

Feature image via the Canary