Britain’s Home Secretary Priti Patel speaks at a Coronavirus disease related news conference at Downing Street: Credit to Photo Reuters
The Guardian
By Rob Davies
Profits at a PPE company that secured support from the home secretary, Priti Patel, as it lobbied ministers for UK government contracts have soared after it won £216m in taxpayer-funded business during the pandemic.
Revenues at Pharmaceuticals Direct Limited jumped from £38m to £166m in the year to the end of March 2021, with profits rising eightfold, from £1.6m to £13m, according to accounts filed this week at Companies House.
The company, which also paid a £420,000 dividend for the year, won two PPE contracts during the period, worth a combined £131m.
Last year, Labour accused Patel of a “flagrant breach” of the ministerial code, which she denied, after letters emerged showing that she intervened with Michael Gove on behalf of the company, which was represented by a former adviser of hers.
Documents showed that in May 2020, Patel attempted to secure a PPE deal for the firm worth £20m.
Her efforts failed after the health secretary, Matt Hancock, said the masks were “not suitable for the NHS”, according to disclosure in a legal case brought by the Good Law Project.
On documents for both contracts, Samir Jassal was named as Patel’s “suppliers’ contact” at PDL. Jassal is a former adviser to Patel, has stood as a Conservative candidate at two general elections and has met Boris Johnson and David Cameron.
At the time, a spokesperson for Patel said: “The home secretary rightly followed up representations made to her about the vital supply of PPE. During a time of national crisis, failure to do so would have been a dereliction of duty.”
PDL, whose owner Bemal Patel (no relation to the home secretary), has since won a third contract, worth £85m, to provide lateral flow tests, taking its total income from Covid-19 work to £216m.
The Guardian has approached PDL and Jassal for comment.
Disclosure from the government – in response to a pre-action letter from the Good Law Project campaign group – revealed a letter Patel wrote to Gove in May last year. The Daily Mail, which first reported on the documents, said the possible deal was worth £20m.
In the letter, Patel expressed disappointment that the government no longer required supplies of KN95 masks from PDL, saying “they have committed stock and secured supply, exposing them to considerable financial risk and pressures”.
“The late stage in which the government has decided not to use them has caused these problems,” the home secretary wrote on 3 May last year. She went on to say she would be “most grateful” if Hancock could review the matter urgently and urged him to “work with the company to distribute and supply these masks”.
Hancock wrote back 10 days later to say that “KN95 face masks are Chinese standards” and that UK officials have concluded that they are “not suitable for use in the NHS”.