Former Tory minister Liam Fox has strongly denied any wrongdoing after receiving a donation from a COVID testing agency he advisable to the federal government through the pandemic.
Sky News has seen an electronic mail from Dr Fox to the then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock, dated 22 June 2020, saying the Derbyshire-based firm SureScreen Diagnostics was “exporting huge numbers of antibody tests” to Germany, Spain and Sweden, and had “performed extremely well in internationally conducted trials”.
Dr Fox included an electronic mail to him from the agency’s director, David Campbell, interesting to “proceed with government approval in the UK”, earlier than the MP added: “Would it be possible to send this on to PHE [Public Health England] and ask them to be in touch with the company.
“As we enter the following part I do not suppose the British individuals would perceive or approve of the widespread export of this functionality once we could have an enormous want at dwelling.”
Seven months later, SureScreen went on to be awarded a contract value £500m by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to produce a special take a look at, exhibiting if there was a present an infection – although it’s not clear if this was a results of Dr Fox’s electronic mail.
And in accordance with its accounts, SureScreen’s dad or mum firm posted earnings earlier than tax of £67.2m for the yr ending May 2021.
In July 2022, Dr Fox declared within the Register of Members’ Interests that he had acquired a donation of £20,000 a month earlier from the identical firm.
The electronic mail was obtained by the Good Law Project – which has taken a number of authorized actions, to various levels of success, in opposition to the federal government over its use of emergency powers to make offers with corporations with out opening them to competitors – after a Freedom of Information Request first reported by the BBC.
The marketing campaign group’s government director, Jolyon Maugham, instructed Sky News the donation raised questions.
“How many times do corporates need to give money to Tory MPs after getting help winning vast public contracts before concluding we have a cash for contracts problem,” he mentioned.
“We know perfectly well what we’d call conduct like this if we saw it happening in another country.”
But a spokesperson for Dr Fox instructed Sky News: “This is a baseless smear concocted by the political activist Jolyon Maugham and the Good Law Project. It is appalling that this should be propagated by the BBC.”
They added the Tory MP could be making a proper criticism to the BBC and was “taking legal advice on the matter”.
‘This uncovers individuals working collectively’
In an announcement to the BBC, SureScreen mentioned the donation was made to Dr Fox’s workplace, reasonably than the MP personally, and was made by one of many administrators of the enterprise.
“This donation was specifically to support a series of events which include education talks from expert guests,” the agency added. “The payment is not connected in any way to lobbying.”
A spokesman for Mr Hancock additionally strenuously denied any wrongdoing, and mentioned he was not liable for signing off any contracts when well being secretary.
“All DHSC contracts are decided, priced and signed off by the civil service, who are independent of Mr Hancock,” he added.
“If Mr Hancock received an email about expanding testing, of course he would have acted on it irrespective of the source. Not to do so would have been completely irresponsible.
“Remember, what was occurring on the time was a nationwide effort to increase testing, and all this uncovers is individuals working collectively to save lots of lives.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “All testing suppliers – together with SureScreen Diagnostics – have been evaluated earlier than contracts have been awarded, consistent with stringent procurement laws and transparency tips.
“Tests supplied by the UK government also underwent a rigorous scientific evaluation process before distribution to make sure they were highly effective at detecting COVID-19.”
Source: information.sky.com”