Thread by @GoodLawProject

💥 UK government told PPE deals were lined up with ‘bribes’ in China | Evening Standard

Follow the updates from day 3 of 5 in the High Court - from 10.30am. standard.co.uk/news/uk/ppe-br…

🚀WE'RE OFF.

First update - the Press Association have submitted an application in support of our request for the total amount of public money Government wasted on PPE not fit for purpose to be unredacted and released from the confidentiality ring.

JCQC: Perfectly understandable to prioritise large companies offering large volumes of certain material, or any volume of urgently needed material, but it's not justifiable to select for negotiation somebody who’s a contact of a minister. That shouldn’t be a ground for selection

JCQC: "VIP lane criteria were not publicised to suppliers...If you happened to have had a contact of a minister or a senior official, then you got onto the VIP lane, but everyone else was waiting on the portal without knowing what would make their offers more attractive."

This is the heart of our case - many of the firms funnelled through the VIP lane were prioritised based on who they knew, not what they could deliver.

Not only did it make many Tory associates rich - it also impeded attempts to buy the PPE desperately needed by nurses + doctors

"The outcome of all of this was that there will have been suppliers who could supply the same product at the same price or a better price, with more reliability perhaps, who simply didn’t get in the door and weren’t given the opportunity to compete for particular contracts." JCQC

Government is claiming it would have been "counterproductive" to make the VIP lane public - seemingly on the basis that if they had told people that contacts of ministers are going to get more favourable treatment, then everyone is going to want it...

^^^ may be factually true, but it rather suggests that they shouldn't have been offering more favourable treatment to contacts of ministers at all

There were "instances of Government not applying financial due diligence or technical assurance... That's what happens when you have a non-transparent, effectively secret process. Standards get departed from without the bright light which transparency is supposed to shine" - JCQC

Government's skeleton argument can be read here: glplive.org/1305-d-skele

“Why is there a VIP Team? - The simple answer is that ministers and senior officers sometimes introduce offers of PPE and want them personally handled rather than going through surveys and bulk routes". standard.co.uk/news/uk/ppe-pe…