The latest report criticised the 'VIP lane' which prioritised certain suppliers for NHS PPE

Britain wasted almost £10billion buying PPE during the coronavirus pandemic, the Covid inquiry has found.

Around two-thirds of the total £14.9billion of taxpayer money spent on personal protective equipment went towards masks, gloves, and gowns, which were inadequate and unusable.

In the fifth official report, published today, the inquiry's chair, Baroness Heather Hallett, heavily criticised the "vast" financial waste and structural failures of the pandemic.

She highlighted the "VIP lane" which prioritised certain suppliers for NHS PPE, describing it as "misguided" and said it must "never be repeated".

The inquiry found the system, officially known as the high-priority lane, was "inherently biased" and resulted in contracts that were significantly more expensive and plagued by performance issues.

It was also discovered that the UK’s supplier base was "too concentrated in China", and that Britain was unprepared to rely on domestic manufacturers.

The inquiry "found no evidence of cronyism or corruption on the part of ministers or officials in the final decision of whether to award or reject a contract”.

However, the allegations and lack of transparency did "damage the reputation of those involved in procurement during the pandemic and undermined public trust”.

The contracts awarded through the High Priority Lane tended to be more expensive than those awarded through the standard process.

More than half of the contracts issued through the referral lane were also reported to have performance issues.

This compares with 39 per cent of deals signed that didn’t come through that route.

The route was set up as a "reaction" to requests from senior officials and government ministers asking for updates on offers they had referred into the system, the inquiry heard.

Baroness Hallett, the Covid Inquiry chair, said: "In the global battle to procure equipment and supplies, the UK was simply not ready to compete - the bodies responsible were caught off-guard, with inadequate and untested plans to increase emergency procurement and distribution operations rapidly.

"The public must be able to trust that their money is being spent with propriety, fairness and transparency.

"Public confidence - so important in an emergency - was undermined by the failures in procurement."

The fifth report added: “Ministers and senior officials would ask officials for reassurance that the people they’d referred were being properly processed.

"This increased the workload on an already overworked procurement team."

Medpro, a firm contracted to supply millions of surgical gowns during the pandemic, was ordered to repay £148million to the Government last year after the High Court found it had breached its contract.

The firm has been the subject of a criminal investigation by the National Crime Agency since 2021, but continues to deny any wrongdoing.

Gavin Hayman, Executive Director of the Open Contracting Partnership (and co-Chair of the UKACC), said: "The British Government bought the wrong things, from the wrong people, in the wrong way.

"The Inquiry has shown what happens when emergency powers, weak controls and political access collide with disastrous results.

"Giving huge direct awards to untested companies recommended by politicians harmed the UK’s Covid emergency response. Billions in public money was wasted even while nurses on the frontline had to use binbags for protection.

"The government must now act on all Inquiry’s findings, recover public money and make sure the next crisis is handled with transparency, fairness and proper accountability from day one”.

Daniel Bruce, Chief Executive at Transparency International UK, who gave evidence to the Inquiry, said: "The inquiry's report lays bare the failings of the so-called VIP lane for PPE contracts.

"It confirms our earlier findings that there was systemic bias in awarding contracts to those with connections to the party of government and that, in a majority of cases, there was no objective assessment of those firms' ability to actually deliver PPE.

"The inquiry underscores the damage done to public trust by a prolonged and unnecessary failure of transparency in public spending.

"It also challenges the new government to go further to guard against the risk of corruption in future emergencies."

Sue Hawley, Executive Director of Spotlight on Corruption, said: “While the inquiry couldn’t identify cronyism or corruption, what is plain to see is that the VIP Lane was at the very least misguided. - It’s right there in the name, a ‘VIP Lane’.

"Its ongoing use, beyond the very early stages of the pandemic, undermined trust in government, and trust in government is never more important than during a public health emergency.

"VIP contracts failed at three times the rate of standard ones and cost 80% more per unit, even as nurses resorted to bin bags on the frontline. Five years on, nearly £109 billion has been written off, only one supplier has been taken to court, and the public is still owed a full accounting.

"The Covid-19 Inquiry’s report on procurement should mark a turning point for accountability, transparency and reform."