Can we have confidence in the Covid inquiry?

It was Good Law Project that revealed the existence of the VIP lane; we forced the government to publish the names of those in it; and we brought the litigation that declared the VIP lane illegal.

Our work was highlighted in the leader columns of two newspapers in a single day: The Times and the Guardian. It is no exaggeration to say that Good Law Project was the moving force behind uncovering the VIP lane scandal. We hold papers leaked to us by civil servants, papers from court proceedings, documents from disgruntled employees of VIP lane companies, briefings of one VIP lane company against another, briefings from civil servants and text messages sent by VIP lane suppliers.

It is obvious, given their nature, that many of these documents will not be available to the Covid inquiry. But the possible scale of the inquiry’s blind spot emerges only if you are aware of two separate briefings by civil servants that they had been instructed to destroy records held by the Cabinet Office.

We cannot know what evidence the inquiry will never hear. But it feels both substantial and material. If the evidence in relation to the PPE Medpro transaction is being held in private why are not other VIP lane transactions where individuals have been arrested also being held in private? Does the Covid inquiry even know of those other arrests?

Who the inquiry chooses to hear from is, of course, for the inquiry. But given that we have, second only to the government, the biggest cache of evidence relating to the VIP lane it is surprising that we have not been asked to give evidence before it.

Since we have not, here are six questions the public needs answers to:

1. The government had weekly consumption figures to show how much PPE it was consuming during the pandemic. Why did it purchase at five times normal prices (see para 16 of the summary) five years’ supply (see para 2.26)?
2. Why were VIPs more than ten times more likely to win PPE contracts (para 3.12) than non VIPs?
3. Why was PPE brought through the VIP lane 80% more expensive than PPE brought through normal channels?
4. Every single VIP lane contract winner referred by a politician was referred by a Conservative politician. What and how were Conservative politicians, and members of the broader Conservative family, told about the VIP lane?
5. Why did businesses – such as Pharmaceuticals Direct, Luxe Lifestyle and others – pay large sums to Conservative politicians in return for winning PPE contracts? What other explanation is there than that they believed the process was corrupt?
6. What happened to those payments made to Conservative politicians?

Even if the inquiry ducks the issue, these questions must still be answered.