Gove was described as insistent that an order be placed with the Dyson company.
Brexiteer and vacuum cleaner tycoon James Dyson received “preferential treatment” in securing a COVID-19 contract for his company to produce 10,000 ventilators, the covid inquiry has heard.
In a submission on procurement from Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, Pete Weatherby KC, noted that Michael Gove was “described as INSISTENT that an order be placed” with the Dyson company.
According to the report, in a meeting on 25 March 2020, despite advice that Dyson’s units would fail clinical tests, Gove “acknowledged he was under political pressure to ensure we have followed up with Dyson”.
The submission also notes that civil service officials felt under increased pressure to agree to deals involving offers that were strongly supported by ministers.
Gove then made a decision, against commercial advice, to place a provisional order with Dyson for its ventilator model.
By April 2020, when it was clear the Dyson model would no longer be pursued, Former Government Chief Commercial Officer, Gareth Rhys Williams was warned by Lord Agnew, a minister, that:
“We are going to have to handle Dyson carefully… l suspect we’ll have to buy a few machines, get them into hospitals so that he can then market internationally, being able to say they are being used in UK hospitals…
“We both need to accept that it will be a bigger decision than we can both make. Remember he got a personal call from the PM. This can’t be ignored.”
In the end, the government did not purchase any ventilators from Dyson.
However, Weatherby told the inquiry that the procurement expert Professor Albert Sanchez Graells had described the manner in which Dyson was treated as an “affront to the procurement rules”.
Sanchez said that the ministers’ decision to include Dyson in the ‘Ventilator Challenge’ and award the company a contingent contract meant it favoured the company for reasons unrelated to the procurement process.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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