The Guardian - UK (2022-05-02)

• The Guardian Monday 2 May 2022

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Page 30

 The levelling-up

crusade lies withered

and abandoned

John Harris

Page 1

Health and wellbeing

Menopausal women lack

basic support in workplace,

fi nds landmark study

Page 5

‘I made a lot of mistakes’

Jon Bernthal on fi ghts,

family and playing

the tough guy

Page 6

Ministers’ refusal to publish PPE

fi rm contract ‘reeks of cover-up’

Peter Walker

Political correspondent

Labour has accused ministers of a

potential cover-up over a PPE con-

tract with a company linked to the

Tory peer Michelle Mone, after the

health department refused to release

documents connected to the deal, cit-

ing commercial sensitivities.

The row comes days after the

National Crime Agency (NCA)

searched Mone’s home as part of a

potential fraud investigation into the

company, PPE Medpro, which won

more than £200m in government con-

tracts without public tender.

Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy

leader, wrote to the government in

January to seek the release of corre-

spondence and records connected to

the deal, as happened over a testing

contract won by another company,

Randox , after lobbying by the then

Tory MP Owen Paterson.

In the letter, Rayner noted that

Medpro won the two contracts via a

“VIP lane” for politically connected

companies after Mone contacted

two ministers in May 2020 to say she

could source PPE.

“I would ask now that the govern-

ment takes the same approach as it

has to the contract with Randox,

which was a similar matter of con-

troversy, and commits now to place

all correspondence and records relat-

ing to the award in the library of the

house [of Commons] for parliamen-

tary scrutiny,” Rayner wrote.

In a reply sent last week, the

junior health minister Edward Argar

defended the eff orts made to pur-

chase medical protective supplies

at the start of the Covid pandemic,

saying the alternative was “not secur-

ing the PPE that was desperately

the PPE Medpro contract as these

remain commercially sensitive, given

the department is currently engaged

in a mediation process concerning

the products it received from PPE

Medpro Ltd, which involves confi -

dentiality undertakings.”

Twenty-five million medical

gowns supplied by the company were

never used after offi cials rejected

them following an inspection, with

the Department of Health and Social

Care (DHSC) seeking to recover

money from PPE Medpro through

mediation. PPE Medpro has main-

tained that it complied with the terms

of its gowns contract and is entitled to

keep the money it was paid.

In a statement, Rayner said the

government’s refusal to release the

documents “reeks of a cover up”.

She said: “The fact that Medpro

is in mediation for providing use-

less PPE is no excuse for failing to be

transparent with the public – in fact it

only strengthens the need for clarity

about how this eye-watering waste

was allowed to happen. The govern-

ment have shown complete disregard

for working people by wasting tax-

payers’ money on dodgy contracts.”

On Wednesday, the NCA searched

properties associated with Medpro

on the Isle of Man and in London,

including the Isle of Man offi ce build-

ing where PPE Medpro is registered

and the mansion where Lady Mone

lives with her husband, the business

magnate Douglas Barrowman.

Responding to previous stories,

Mone’s lawyers have said any sug-

gestion of an association or collusion

between the Tory peer and PPE Med-

pro would be “inaccurate” and that

she was not involved in the business.

“Baroness Mone is neither an

investor, director or shareholder in

any way associated with PPE Medpro.

She has never had any role or func-

tion in PPE Medpro, nor in the process

by which contracts were awarded to

PPE Medpro.”

They have said that after she

undertook the “simple, solitary and

brief step” of referring PPE Medpro to

the government she did nothing fur-

ther in respect of the company.

The DHSC referred any queries on

Medpro to the NCA.

Poorer areas

hit hardest by

council cuts

to services,

report warns

Peter Walker

Political correspondent

Poorer areas have been hit dispropor-

tionately by a combination of cuts

to neighbourhood services such as

parks, libraries, refuse collection

and children’s centres that have left

English councils “hollowed out”

since 2010, a major report into local

government has concluded.

The study by the Institute for Gov-

ernment thinktank found that while

some councils had coped better than

decade had not properly accounted

for poorer areas being more depend-

ent on central government help.

But the report, Neighbourhood

Services Under Strain, said that

there was no correlation between the

reduction in spending and worse per-

formance, with some councils more

successfully managing effi ciencies.

It was, however, diffi cult to learn

lessons as “there are still big gaps in

what the government knows about

local service performance”, said

Graham Atkins , the report’s author.

“If the government truly wants

to understand how and why perfor-

mance varies, it will have to collect

new, comparable local data on the

quality and accessibility of services.”

A key change to the provision

of council services since 2010, the

report found, ha d been a focus on

providing statutory services, often

with inadvertent knock-on eff ects.

One example cited was a prioriti-

sation of acute child services at the

expense of children’s centres, even

though this could cost more money

in the long term if the lack of early

support created more demand for

statutory services later on.

“The overall picture is of smaller

local authorities doing less than they

did in 2010,” the report said. “Local

government in England has been hol-

lowed out since 2010.”

A spokesperson for the Depart-

ment for Levelling Up, Housing and

Communities said councils would get

“the resources they need to main-

tain and improve their services”,

with an extra £3.7bn available for

2022/23, including £822m for coun-

cils to spend as they wanted.

“Our fl agship levelling up white

paper sets out a clear blueprint

on how we will reduce regional

in equalities ,” they added. “This

includes transforming our approach

to data and evaluation to improve

local decision-making.”

others, a lack of information had

made it diffi cult to learn lessons.

There are performance indicators

for only about a third of local gov-

ernment spending, the report said,

with better data needed if ministers

wanted to implement their plan to

“level up” areas of the country.

Based on analysis of spending and

outcomes, as well as anonymous

interviews with council chief exec-

utives and chief fi nance offi cers, the

report highlighted the consequences

of the severe cuts that began with

austerity policies in 2010.

The combination of reduced cen-

tral grants and growing expenditure

on mandatory social care obligations

meant all English local authorities

had reduced spending on neighbour-

hood services since 2010, the report

found. However, the extent of this

varied from a 5% cut in East Sussex to

a 69% cut in Barking and Dagenham.

More deprived areas saw a dis-

proportionate number of library

closures and reductions in bus routes.

T he report said this was because

the changes to grants over the past

 Michelle Mone

and Douglas

Barrowman.

Their home

was searched

as part of a

potential fraud

investigation

into PPE Medpro

PHOTOGRAPH MAX

MUMBY/INDIGO/GETTY

needed; clearly not an option”. “All

off ers underwent rigorous fi nan-

cial, commercial, legal and policy

assessments,” Argar said, adding

that decisions were made by offi cials,

with no evidence that ministers were

involved, and that “due diligence

checks were appropriate given the

circumstances”.

He continued: “However, we are

unable to provide correspondence

and records relating to the award of

‘The fact that Medpro

is in mediation is no

excuse for failing to

be transparent’

Angela Rayner

Labour deputy leader

69%

The cut since 2010 from funds

for neighbourhood services in

Barking and Dagenham