We Need to Talk About Michael Gove and Crony Covid Contracts
Gove claims he had no “active role” in the procurement of Covid PPE during the pandemic, yet evidence suggests he was involved in multiple VIP deals worth over £1billion, reports Russell Scott
I’ve been investigating the VIP Lane for more than 5 years now – the secretive procurement route established by the previous Conservative government, during the pandemic.
The notorious VIP Lane was a discreet, fast-track channel that led to billions of pounds worth of public contracts being awarded to politically connected suppliers, primarily without any formal competitive tendering procedures and shielded from public view – a process that was eventually declared unlawful by the High Court.
During this period, the names of familiar Conservative peers and ministers would regularly pop-up in my investigations as they became embroiled in controversial PPE deals – Matt Hancock, Lord Feldman, Lord Agnew, Lord Deighton, to name just a few – politicians all from one party; the Conservatives.
In fact, the Conservative quad of Hancock, Agnew, Deighton and Feldman were responsible for referring a total of 60 suppliers onto the VIP Lane. An astonishing number when you consider the countless times the previous Government claimed there was no political interference in procurement process during this time.
However, there were also many other senior Conservative grandees involved in the VIP Lane scandal and my new book: VIP Lane; Cronyism and the Pandemic covers most of them in great detail.
Of particular note is former Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove – now Baron Gove, a life peer in the House of Lords and Editor of The Spectator.
Since 2020, I’ve reported for Byline Times on numerous examples of Michael Gove’s involvement in some very questionable bids to supply medical equipment, prior to those same companies subsequently going on to secure huge contracts.
More often than not, these suppliers had direct links back to the Conservative party as either donors, leading Brexiteers or political allies, and the overall value of the Vovid contracts that flowed to these firms exceeded over £1billion – a staggering amount of tax-payers’ money.
Here’s a reminder of some of my findings for Byline Times:
Michael Gove and the VIP Lane’s biggest winner.
In March 2025, Byline Times revealed how Unispace Global were awarded £679 million in PPE deals from the Government after the company’s offer “came through” Cabinet Minister Michael Gove – contradicting the then-Government’s claims of no involvement.
It looks likely that the Cabinet Office, under the previous Government, had misled the public over Michael Gove’s involvement with VIP Lane’s biggest winner.
The campaign group Good Law Project revealed, in February 2024, that then-Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (CDL) Michael Gove had “opened the door to the biggest VIP lane firm” during the Covid pandemic.
As CDL, Michael Gove was in charge of the Cabinet Office overseeing the pandemic response.
In a previously unpublished email signed by the Unispace’s “Founder”, the company contacted Gove on 24 March 2020, thanking him for his “time spent with us on the phone earlier”. Unispace was offering to sell PPE as well as hospital beds, ventilators and other supplies.
The email to the former minister finished by saying they are “praying fervently for all men and for you and the Conservative Party at this difficult time”.
Gove’s office referred the offer on to the office of former Secretary of State Matt Hancock – and just 20 days after Gove’s referral, on 20 April 2020, the Department of Health and Social Care handed the company an initial contract, valued at £239 million to provide coveralls – a deal that was signed without any formal competition.
However, despite the email evidence published by Good Law Project, the Cabinet Office still denied Gove was involved in the VIP referral, claiming: “Ministers had no involvement in these procurement decisions.”
Documents published by the Covid Inquiry reveal this statement to be incorrect.
In January 2025, the Inquiry heard from Darren Blackburn, a senior Civil Servant working in the Cabinet Office during its drive to procure PPE. Mr Blackburn’s witness statement revealed interesting new details regarding the Unipace PPE deals.
In an email exchange with another Civil Servant on 16 April 2020, just four days prior to Unispace securing its first PPE contract, Blackburn notes in his witness statement:
“At 0930 on 16 April 2020, I replied to Ed asking whether Unispace [was] an existing supplier, and why the Unispace offers kept coming to him. Ed replied that the Company (Unispace) came through Michael Gove, but he had no idea how that had happened.”
The statement provided by Darren Blackburn directly contradicts the Cabinet Office’s position that Gove was not involved.
It wasn’t just VIP PPE Suppliers that got the Gove treatment.
Michael Gove and the ‘Ventilator Challenge’
Byline Times had revealed, just a few weeks previously, that Michael Gove told officials to buy 10,000 Ventilators from a well known vacuum manufacturer and keen Brexiteer – James Dyson.
A decision that was called an ‘affront’ to the rules by a procurement expert appointed by the Covid Inquiry.
In March 2025, the inquiry looked closely at Government procurement of PPE, Covid tests and Ventilators during the pandemic.
The first witness that was called before the inquiry, chaired by Baroness Heather Hallet, was independent procurement expert Professor Dr Albert Sanchez-Graells. The professor’s findings provided further clarity on the political pressure piled on civil servants during this period.
The contents of Professor Sanchez-Graells’s expert report were published by the inquiry in March and revealed the true extent of Michael Gove’s role in ensuring Dyson were awarded a contract to provide 10,000 ventilators as part of the ‘Ventilator Challenge’.
The Ventilator Challenge was the Government’s flagship procurement programme launched in early 2020 in a bid to bolster medical supplies as the country entered its first national lockdown.
Of the £277 million spent on ventilators by the Cabinet Office, more than half, £143 million, was written off. Furthermore, details of the contracts remained unpublished for more than three years (in breach of transparency laws) and were only released to the public following a legal challenge by Good Law Project in early 2023.
Professor Sanchez-Graell’s report highlighted the deal awarded to Dyson in March 2020. The report reveals, notably that:
“Dyson benefitted from preferential treatment” because Michael Gove, issued “an instruction” to place an order for 10,000 ventilators from Dyson in March 2020. According to the Government Chief Commercial Officer, Mr Gove was “insistent that an order be placed”.
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson had “given direct contact details of a civil servant involved in initial discussions to Sir James Dyson.”
Cabinet Minister Lord Agnew also intervened in April 2020 and said: “We are going to have to handle Dyson carefully. I accept that contractually, we can walk away as he hasn’t delivered by the due date. I also accept that we have an indemnity battle ahead. But just killing off his design (assuming it gets through MHRA) won’t be an option. I suspect we’ll have to buy a few machines, get them into hospitals so that he can then market internationally, being able to say they are being used in UK hospitals” before ending the message by stating “Remember he got a personal call from the PM. This can’t be ignored”.
Professor Sanchez-Graells suggested the Dyson deal could be an “affront” to proper procurement rules and flagged concerns over the legality of the Dyson deal, concluding:
“Favouring Dyson due to the political pressure Ministers were under would have been clearly problematic and, in my view, beyond being objectionable, it would have raised serious questions as to its legality. It would also have raised questions on the origin of the political pressure”.
Ultimately, the initial contract awarded to Dyson was cancelled. A Dyson spokesperson told the Guardian, “Sir James Dyson responded to a personal call from the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, to develop and make a medical-grade ventilator in 30 days during the national emergency.
“Dyson had no intention of manufacturing ventilators for profit. Far from receiving any commercial benefit, there was significant commercial cost to Dyson, which diverted 450 engineers away from commercial projects.”
Michael Gove and the VIP Covid Testing Firm
Just last month, Byline Times revealed that Lord Gove stepped in to help out another prominent Brexiteer secure a high-value government covid contract.
Michael Gove personally lobbied Government officials to ensure that the award of a multimillion pound Covid testing contract to a Conservative donor and Brexit supporter was “unblocked”.
On 31 March 2020, one week after the UK entered into the first national lockdown, the then Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove received an email from Toby Baxendale – director of the covid testing firm Ciga Healthcare.
Baxendale previously donated over £50,000 to the Conservative party, with his wife Catherine donating a further £50,000 and he was also a founding member of the right leaning think-tank the Cobden Centre.
In the email, which was disclosed to Byline Times following a freedom of information request, Baxendale urged Gove to take action regarding his company’s bid to supply antibody tests.
The pro-Brexit businessman was highly critical of the Government’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty, and Chief Scientist Patrick Vallance, who he described in the email as being like “hardened Remainers” who were “closed to any alternative views”.
Baxendale pushed for Gove to “act with [his] instincts and take control” of the process, against the perceived wishes of the Government’s senior health officials, claiming that by doing so the Conservative minister would “save the nation”.
The message appears to have had an effect, given just 48 hours later, Gove then emailed the former Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill and other top civil servants working within No.10 on behalf of Baxendale, urging for any delays in the contract award to Ciga to be “unblocked”.
Gove’s email to Sedwill stated that: “I was contacted by Toby Baxendale, who was encouraged personally by the PM and Matt Hancock to help, and who has sourced 1 million antibody tests from China (with a possible further 1 million in the pipeline).
“He claims to have received resistance from PHE in getting them green lighted. Have all the problems been unblocked? Are we sure we are pursuing every angle on this simultaneously?”
Within a week of Gove’s intervention, Ciga Healthcare were selected by the Government to form a consortium of British-based companies contracted by the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) to manufacture and develop “a home-grown [antibody] test”.
The UK Rapid Test Consortium (UK-RTC) was established around April 8 2020, and comprised Abingdon Health, Oxford University, BBI Solutions, CIGA Healthcare and Omega Diagnostics.
On 11 April, the consortium signed an initial six-month Memorandum of Understanding. Not long after the MOU was signed, contract awards began to flow to the group. On 1 June the UK-RTC landed its first £10million deal to develop a new anti-body test. This was followed by a much larger £75m deal in August 2020.
The contracts awarded to the consortium were highly controversial, and subject to a legal challenge by the Good Law Project.
During the course of the high court case, ‘explosive’ emails were disclosed that revealed the contracts awarded to the consortium appear to have been funnelled through the fast track “VIP Route”. Civil servants were recorded describing the Covid testing programme as “unlegit” and “no way to do business”.
And there’s more…
Michael Gove’s “Office” also played a crucial role in helping a firm owned by his “good friend” secure over £160million of VIP Lane PPE deals.
Furthermore The Guardian has previously revealed Baroness Mone had lobbied Gove on his personal Gmail account on behalf of PPE Medpro, prior to the firm securing PPE Deals worth £200million – including a £122million contract to supply gowns that the courts recently ordered PPE Medpro to repay in full and which is currently at the centre of an ongoing NCA Investigation.
Russell Scott’s brilliant new book: VIP Lane: Cronyism and the Pandemic is available to buy now from Byline Books.
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