High Court: Govt broke law over COVID

The government broke the law by giving a coronavirus contract to an associate of ministers and the PM’s former chief aide, a judge has ruled.

Video Transcript

MARK AUSTIN: The high court has ruled that the government acted unlawfully by awarding a contract to a company run by friends of Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former chief advisor. Campaigners took legal action over the decision to pay more than 500,000 pounds of taxpayers’ money to the firm. Our political correspondent Kate McCann joins us from Westminster. And Kate, obviously, pretty difficult for the government and for Dominic Cummings.

KATE MCCANN: Yes, it is a difficult decision. The reading of it is interesting though. Because the case against the government suggested that there was an apparent bias in the decision making, not that an actual bias took place.

And it’s complicated because of the context where the decision was made. We know it was the height of the pandemic. Everything was very chaotic inside government. Ministers were trying to grapple with something that none of us had ever gone through before and they were struggling.

And it’s not just this contract– which of course, is about communications, it’s about government messaging and understanding how people were receiving those messages– it’s much broader than that too. Because there are now questions being raised over PPE contracts and how procurement worked in general at that time.

Now, that’s something that’s going to be investigated further down the line. The prime minister has said he’s open to having that discussion. Not quite yet, but he is willing to have it. But this particular case hinged on the idea that actually, the government gave a contract to people who were friends of, as you say, Dominic Cummings, rather than tendering it out to different companies.

Now, ministers say that that was the right decision at the time because of the context. As I say, there was so much going on and it was so important to get those messages out quickly. But the court said that actually, there was an apparent bias. And that a right-minded person would have been able to see that.

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Now, Angela Rayner for the Labor Party is saying that there should be an investigation into whether Michael Gove has broken the ministerial code as a result. Here’s what she had to say this afternoon.

ANGELA RAYNER: What we need to know is whether the ministerial code was breached. And actually, time and time again, all we’re seeing is conservative friends and associates being awarded contracts without any tendering process. And we talking billions of pounds this adds up to.

This is taxpayers’ money that’s being wasted. And it’s completely unacceptable. And that’s why I think that that money should be recouped, but equally, we need an investigation to stop this, you know, this cronyism and this, you know, total breach of power. It’s totally unacceptable.

It’s not the way we work in Britain. You know, good companies are out there that want to do a good job for us. And the taxpayers deserve every single pound that they’ve earned and given to the Treasury should be spent efficiently and effectively for the people of this country.

KATE MCCANN: Now, the cabinet office has responded to Angela Rayner. A spokesman said, “The minister was not involved in the decision to award this contract. Questions concerning the ministerial code therefore do not arise, and there will be no investigation. Any suggestion that there has been a breach of the ministerial code is wrong.”

So there will be no personal implications for Michael Gove after this decision today in the high court. But there will be further investigations and questions about government procurement during the time of coronavirus, and about how it can be made more transparent if anything like this were ever to happen again.

MARK AUSTIN: All right, Kate, thank you very much.