Our mission is to achieve change through the law.

What would good procurement look like?

By Rhian E. Jones As Good Law Project has consistently noted, the government’s current procurement procedures amount to cronyism on an industrial scale. The National Audit Office report into procurement during the Covid pandemic revealed contracts...

How do we choose our cases?

Good Law Project’s governance is complex. We are not a charity that exists to serve narrowly defined legal purposes. We don’t have the simple logic of businesses that exist to maximise their profits. And, although...

NEW: Our challenge to Gavin Williamson over unlawful school guidance for Covid-vulnerable families

Our lawyers have written to Education Secretary Gavin Williamson today, asking him to urgently clarify school attendance guidance so that it considers the needs of vulnerable families – and threatening formal legal proceedings if he...

NEW: A rare and vital win for the future of our planet

We’ve won. Government has today announced its new policy for the future of energy production in the UK following our legal challenge last year. We are pleased to say that the proposed new policy is...

Update: Government has snubbed the legal commitment to achieve NetZero by 2050

On the eve of COP26 the Government has, once again, snubbed the legal commitment in the Climate Change Act 2008 to achieve NetZero by 2050. Government’s latest failure comes in a letter to Good Law Project...

NEW: Education Secretary Gavin Williamson could be in breach of the law

Schools are reopening and Government wants to pretend Covid is fixed. But this stance puts the lives of children, their families, and teaching staff at risk.  Even children and families with serious medical conditions that make...

We won’t allow children’s health to be sacrificed on the altar of politics

On 19 August, Dr Jenny Harries wrote to families to say that children the Government had once classed as especially vulnerable to Covid were no longer considered vulnerable. The letter said that they must attend...

Why might the anti-corruption tsar be smearing us?

“Unimaginable resources” were thrown at Test and Trace. Yet it “cannot point to a measurable difference to the progress of the pandemic”. That’s what the Conservative-majority Public Accounts Committee found. There was a measurable difference,...

Update: We have permission to appeal

On 29 June we published a blog explaining that a technical error by our solicitors – involving the papers being sent to the wrong email address at the Government Legal Department, corrected a day later...

We have permission to bring our cross-appeal

In mid-July, we told you Michael Gove was appealing the Court’s decision that he broke the law in awarding a lucrative public contract to his friends at Public First because of apparent bias. We also...

Good news: We’re going to Court

The High Court has granted permission for our legal challenge to the “Levelling Up Fund”. The huge £4.8bn fund pretends to be the centrepiece of a levelling up agenda – but we think it’s just...

Rogue PCR testing companies

Cowboy PCR testing companies are fleecing ordinary people out of hundreds, if not thousands of pounds. They are charging a fortune for PCR tests and then often failing to deliver the tests or results when...

We’re hiring: Recruitment and HR Officer

The deadline to apply for this position has now closed. We are currently reviewing applications and will be in touch with successful candidates regarding the next stage. We received a large number of applications for...

REVEALED: Tory welfare for the wealthy

Cash for the Tories buys you access. And access means cash from the public purse. That’s the abysmal two-step that channels public cash to Party donors.  All of this happened secretly through the VIP backchannels for...

REVEALED: Secret meeting between firm chaired by Government’s PPE Tsar and UK minister to discuss PPE deals

A British trade minister met with a secretive intelligence firm last year to discuss the Government’s efforts to secure PPE. The firm – Hakluyt – is chaired by the Government’s own PPE ‘Tsar’, Lord Deighton....

We’re hiring: Supporter Services Assistant

The deadline to apply for this position has now closed. We are currently reviewing applications and will be in touch with successful candidates regarding the next stage. We received a large number of applications for...

Good Law Project welcomes new board members

Good Law Project is delighted to welcome four new members to its non-executive Board.  The wealth of experience, skill, and commitment of our strengthened Board will help steer the organisation as we build on our early...

Bunzl: We’re going to Court

Forget about Greensill. Only last year, a Minister brought a former Chair of the Tory Party, a man who now runs a lobbying firm, into the heart of Government to work on PPE procurement. Having...

Lord Bethell’s new phone

Lord Bethell is the Health Minister responsible for overseeing the award of Covid contracts. His time as Health Minister has been mired in controversy: from failing to declare meetings with firms that won huge Government...

Gavin Williamson accused of unlawful failure to intervene as local authorities put children in care at risk

By Sophia Alexandra Hall  Almost 40% of children in care are being moved outside of their local authority area. Good Law Project has launched a legal challenge to the very high numbers of children in care being...

BREAKING: New emails reveal Government used taxpayers’ money to conduct political polling

Good Law Project had a court hearing last week in connection with our challenge to the award of a lucrative public contract to associates of Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings at Hanbury without competition. Documents we...

We’re recruiting: Director of Partnerships

The deadline to apply for this position has now closed. We are currently reviewing applications and will be in touch with successful candidates regarding the next stage. We received a large number of applications for...

BREAKING: Government admits at least 4 Ministers used private emails for Government business

Following the revelations that disgraced former Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Health Minister Lord Bethell used private email accounts for Government business, our lawyers wrote to Government lawyers asking them to confirm they had searched...

REVEALED: Ministers ignored Government recruitment process to appoint Gina Coladangelo

Documents uncovered by Good Law Project suggest Ministers at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) abandoned their own recruitment procedures to directly appoint Gina Coladangelo as a non-executive director. We have unearthed a...

We’re recruiting: Editorial Lead

The deadline to apply for this position has now closed. We are currently reviewing applications and will be in touch with successful candidates regarding the next stage. We received a large number of applications for...

REVEALED: Cabinet office Ministers continue to mislead the public over PPE procurement

Last week, Michael Gove the Minister for the Cabinet Office was questioned by MPs on Government procurement during the pandemic. Gove responded in the Commons claiming “every single procurement decision went through an eight-stage process.” During...

Government is appealing

The statement issued by Downing Street when Michael Gove lost the Public First case (“We welcome the judgment”) might almost have made you think he had won. He didn’t of course – and the finding...

Children in care

Time and again local authorities are placing children in care in the cheapest accommodation, rather than the accommodation that best meets their needs. For more than 30,000 children last year, this meant being torn away...

Update: Peter Cruddas

A few weeks ago, Good Law Project wrote to the Prime Minister in respect of its decision to appoint a Conservative Party donor to the House of Lords. The donor, Peter Cruddas, made a donation...

Why are Ministers using private emails?

Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock and Lord Bethell have all been reportedly using private email accounts or WhatsApp for Government business, discussing matters of national importance – from the spread of Covid-19 in care homes to...

The lies that pass for transparency data

On Monday we published a short post, pointing out that the so-called “transparency” data – which is supposed to list all of the external meetings Ministers have – failed to mention a meeting on 1...

NEW: Documents reveal VIP lane for testing contracts

Good Law Project can reveal the existence of a VIP lane for Test and Trace spend – and that ‘VIP stakeholder engagement’ was run from a private gmail address. We are today publishing emails showing the...