Priti Patel took leadership donation from firm linked to PPE deal fixer

Priti Patel spectacularly crashed out of the first round of the Tory leadership contest, despite raking in £150,000 of donations. Notably, £70,000 came from Lubov Chernukhin, a Russian emigre, who is married to one of Putin’s former deputy finance ministers.

But two other donations to Patel’s campaign from a firm called Sunbeam Consulting had flown under the radar. These included £10,000 in funding and the supply of a driver and car to ferry her around on the campaign trail, separately valued at £10,700.

Until now. Research by Good Law Project has shown that Sunbeam Consulting is owned by Kiran Jassal, Samir’s wife. Companies House records show that Sunbeam currently shares its address in the Chatham Historic Dockyard with Samir Jassal’s latest venture, Isher Capital Limited.

Now a Conservative Party councilor in Gravesham, Samir Jassal previously acted as a middleman to broker two lucrative PPE deals worth a total of £131m. These were struck between the government and a company called Pharmaceuticals Direct during the height of the pandemic.

At the time, we uncovered documents showing that, as Home Secretary, Priti Patel engaged in vigorous internal lobbying to help Pharmaceuticals Direct secure the first of these two contracts, for 60 million IIR masks, for a total of £28.8m. Her involvement led to accusations from Labour shadow ministers of “a glaring and flagrant breach of the ministerial code.” Good Law Project analysis showed the masks had been sold at a price substantially higher than the benchmark price for IIR masks at that time.

Mr Jassal informed the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists that he had supplied his services to Pharmaceuticals Direct via a company called Dymon Cap Limited. Good Law Project has seen leaked invoices showing that Dymon Cap invoiced Pharmaceuticals Direct £16.37m plus VAT for vaguely defined services.

“It does look as though the Jassal family is scratching the back of Priti Patel who once scratched theirs”, executive director of Good Law Project, Jo Maugham, said. “The problem arises if, as may well be the case, the back scratching is done using the profits from lucrative public contracts.”

According to Pharmaceuticals Direct, the company landed the £28.8m deal because of “decades of long-standing success as a supplier of medical products to the NHS”.

“PDL’s selection was based on its proven and successful track record,” the company said. “It was not based on the role of Mr Jassal or any other factors beyond PDL’s obvious suitability for the job.”

During the pandemic, supply was dwarfed by demand, the company added, making the market “inherently unstable. Any government efforts to ‘benchmark’ prices accurately in those circumstances were undertaken against the background of unprecedented price volatility.”

The offices of Priti Patel and Samir Jassal did not respond to a request for comment.