Lying to Parliament is very serious.

Boris has managed to lie to Parliament, a very serious offence which could result in his resignation.

Government failed to publish 504 Covid-19 contracts in time – High Court

Sam Tobin
5 March 2021, 12:58 pmThe Government unlawfully failed to publish details of more than 500 coronavirus-related contracts within the required time, the High Court has said.

The Good Law Project took legal action against the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) for its “wholesale failure” to disclose details of contracts agreed during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Government is required by law to publish a “contract award notice” within 30 days of the award of any contracts for public goods or services worth more than £120,000.

At a hearing last month, the Good Law Project argued there had been a “dismal” failure by the DHSC to comply with the obligation.

It also claimed the Government was breaching its own transparency policy, which requires the publication of details of public contracts worth more than £10,000.

In a ruling in February, Mr Justice Chamberlain said that “in a substantial number of cases, the Secretary of State (Health Secretary Matt Hancock) breached his legal obligation to publish contract award notices within 30 days of the award of contracts”.

He added: “There is also no dispute that the Secretary of State failed to publish redacted contracts in accordance with the transparency policy.”

In a further ruling on Friday, the judge said the DHSC “acted unlawfully by failing to publish contract award notices for relevant contracts for supplies and services relating to Covid-19 within the 30-day period required… in respect of 504 of the 535 contracts awarded on or before October 7 2020 – i.e. 94%”.

Mr Justice Chamberlain also said: “The defendant has published 608 out of 708 relevant contracts for supplies and services relating to Covid-19 awarded on or before October 7 2020.

“In some or all of these cases, the defendant acted unlawfully by failing to publish the contracts within the period set out in the (transparency policy).

“The Secretary of State has now produced what he says are the correct figures showing the extent of compliance with (the 30-day requirement) but cannot produce equivalent figures for compliance with the transparency policy.

“This is because the date on which the contract is uploaded is not recorded on the Contracts Finder database, so it has not been possible to calculate how many were published within the timescales set out in the transparency policy.”

He said the Good Law Project “complains about the omission of these latter figures and notes that 100 contracts still appear to be outstanding on Contracts Finder, nearly five months after the claim was issued”.

The judge said: “It is unfortunate that the correct figures for compliance with the transparency policy are not available, but they are not – and there is nothing the court can do about it.”

Mr Justice Chamberlain also ordered the DHSC to pay £85,000 towards the Good Law Project’s costs.

BREAKING: new Court Order handed down in last hour shows Boris Johnson misled Parliament over Covid contracts.

You can read the Court Order and consequential judgment in full here. BREAKING: Court Order shows Boris Johnson misled Parliament over Covid contracts - Good Law Project

— Good Law Project (@GoodLawProject) March 5, 2021

In a statement after the ruling, the legal director of the Good Law Project, Gemma Abbott, said: “The Government has not only misled Parliament and placed inaccurate information before the court, it has misled the country.

“Unless contract details are published they cannot be properly scrutinised – there’s no way of knowing where taxpayers’ money is going and why.

“Billions have been spent with those linked to the Conservative Party and vast sums wasted on PPE that isn’t fit for purpose.

“We have a Government, and a Prime Minister, contemptuous of transparency and apparently allergic to accountability. The very least that the public deserves now is the truth.”

In his ruling last month, the judge said the obligations to publish details of such contracts “serve a vital public function and that function was no less important during a pandemic”.

He added: “The Secretary of State spent vast quantities of public money on pandemic-related procurements during 2020.

“The public were entitled to see who this money was going to, what it was being spent on and how the relevant contracts were awarded.

“This was important not only so that competitors of those awarded contracts could understand whether the obligations… had been breached, but also so that oversight bodies such as the National Audit Office, as well as Parliament and the public, could scrutinise and ask questions about this expenditure.”

Mr Justice Chamberlain said the situation the DHSC faced in the first months of the pandemic was “unprecedented”, when “large quantities of goods and services had to be procured in very short timescales”.

The judge said it was “understandable that attention was focused on procuring what was thought necessary to save lives”.

But he added the DHSC’s “historic failure” to comply with the obligations to publish contracts because of the difficulties caused by the pandemic was “an excuse, not a justification”.

 

That is a national disaster.
While the government were fighting to find companies who could produce a 50 fold increase in the normal quantities of PPE manufactured to medical standards, a process that would normally have taken months, they failed to produce enough red tape in the first 30 days to lower a few high court judges coffins into their graves.

It has now taken the idiots brigade 9 months to work this out. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black..

 

No, we haven't forgotten a thing !!! - Especially the fact that these bastards in the scumbag 'nasty party' are now pleading poverty and can't afford a decent pay rise for the NHS staff that saved both Hancock and Johnson's lives whilst at the same time, these two were being profligate with 'our' money giving it to their cronies to provide masks and PPE, some of which have yet to be produced !!!

 

I know that this happened, but finding companies to produce medical quality products is far from easy at any time, particularly when it has to meet BS standards both in manufacture and storage. Storage is a major problem, since it has to be temperature controlled and vermin proof.
At least they have redress on the companies who they know, so they will have to produce the goods or refund the money.
It would have been very easy to hand money over to companies who banked the money and ran.

Over recent months, we are getting leaflets through the door, offering covid immunity testing for £99, based on returning a swab. Since without blood analysis this is impossible, the companies are either stupid, or running a complete scam. Sadly, I fear the latter.
Whenever their is a crisis, criminals everywhere crawl out of the woodwork.

2 weeks ago, 5 people I know who work for a utilities company had to take a covid test. They ALL tested positive, but in the following week showed not the slightest symptom.
We simply have no idea how many people, including my own family, have been in this situation and now have natural immunity. When you think back to the great plague of London, this is what stopped it in it's tracks.
It is quite possible that we could lift all the restrictions today, particularly with the most vulnerable people having been vaccinated, but I would not want to be the person making that decision.

 

REALLY ??? So tell me why Hancock signed a contract with his neighbour and PUBLICAN to produce and deliver masks and PPE - a person who had no knowledge or experience of producing such equipment ???

Extract from an email I received last week !!!


3 days after the High Court ruled Government had acted unlawfully by failing to publish Covid contracts, Boris Johnson stood up in the House of Commons and reassured MPs and the public that all Covid-related contracts were “on the record”. However, the final Order handed down by the Judge today shows that what the Prime Minister told the House was not true.
The Judge confirmed:
“The Defendant has published 608 out of 708 relevant contracts for supplies and services relating to COVID-19 awarded on or before 7 October 2020. In some or all of these cases, the Defendant acted unlawfully by failing to publish the contracts within the period set out in the Crown Commercial Service’s Publication of Central Government Tenders and Contracts: Central Government Transparency Guidance Note (November 2017).”
Remarkably, the Judge’s Order is based on Government’s own figures – so at the same time as Johnson was falsely reassuring MPs, Government lawyers were preparing a statement contradicting him – revealing 100 contracts and dozens of Contract Award Notices were missing from the public record. You can read the final Court Order here and consequential judgment in full here.
Over the course of our judicial review, Government made no less than four attempts to provide an accurate witness statement setting out the number of contracts and Contract Award Notices that had been published late – and they kept getting it wrong. As late as the hearing itself, they said they had published 28% of Contract Award Notices within the 30 day legal limit.
But when asked by the Judge to follow up with evidence of the figures so he could make his final Order, it transpired that Government had actually only published 3% of CANs in the legal timeframe.
Government has not only misled Parliament and placed inaccurate information before the Court, it has misled the country.
Unless contract details are published they cannot be properly scrutinised – there’s no way of knowing where taxpayers’ money is going and why. Billions have been spent with those linked to the Conservative Party and vast sums wasted on PPE that isn’t fit for purpose.
We have a Government, and a Prime Minister, contemptuous of transparency and apparently allergic to accountability. The very least that the public deserves now is the truth.