Thread by @JolyonMaugham

Do you remember when Boris Johnson told Parliament: "All the details are on the record" and added "The contracts are there on the record for everybody to see"? bbc.co.uk/news/uk-562819…

Yesterday Government published (yet another) of the contracts that Boris Johnson had claimed didn't exist: a £102.6m contract to Pharmaceuticals Direct Limited: contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/22f31ba…. (We believe there is more to come from Pharmaceuticals Direct Limited - so watch this space).

The contract is for 20m FFP3 facemasks. They have tried to redact the unit price but they haven't done a very good job so you can see we paid a per unit price of £5.13 (and we picked up the shipping all the way from Jinua City).

Now the contract was entered into - without any tendering process - on 4 July. That was long after the peak of the first wave (indeed, coincidentally, it was the day lockdown restrictions were lifted). instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/…

I can't recall seeing any pandemic PPE contracts entered into in July. So there is very little pricing data around. Indeed, prices had begun to revert to normal as you can see from this internal Government 'Official Secret' pricing chart the data from which ends on 28 May.

But what you can see is that the per unit price for FFP3 masks being paid was about 90p. So you would expect to be able to buy 20m for £18m (or less) rather than the £102.6m Government paid for them (under this contract it unlawfully failed to publish for over eight months).

I should say - I don't want to make a bad point - that I have learned from a new source that Government's slide is not a good price comparison for the market price of that particular FFP3 mask in July. My price comparison (earlier) between the two is apt to mislead.