Minister questioned over his role in COVID contract

Britain's Health Secretary Matt Hancock is facing mounting pressure to explain how one of his social contacts secured a 30 million pound ($40 million) deal to manufacture test tubes for COVID-19 test samples.

Questions have now been raised about the safety certification of the products being produced by Alex Bourne, who used to run a pub in Hancock's village, and had no previous experience in making medical supplies.

The Guardian newspaper revealed that for six months Bourne has been manufacturing millions of plastic vials for COVID-19 test kits, and that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) confirmed his products only "recently" gained certification.

The United Kingdom's public spending watchdog has now warned that ministers must provide evidence why some contracts for personal protective equipment, or PPE, went to certain suppliers.

At the start of the crisis in the spring, the government quickly spent billions of pounds on PPE but, in its urgency, appeared to diverge from the usual competitive purchasing process in favor of buying from small companies.

It has emerged since that many of the companies receiving contracts had no background in PPE, while some turned out to have links to the Conservative Party, the Financial Times reported.

Bourne initially denied he had ever had any personal exchanges regarding COVID supplies with Hancock, but backtracked when presented with evidence by the Guardian, and admitted he first contacted Hancock to offer his services via WhatsApp in March.

Bourne said Hancock directed him to a DHSC website where he registered his company's credentials. He said there was no follow-up between the pair.

Later the Daily Mail website quoted Bourne as saying: "Yes, I sent Mr Hancock a WhatsApp message in the early stages of the pandemic about making PPE, then I got referred straight to the Department of Health website to offer my services.

"We looked at PPE and decided we didn't have the expertise to make it. But we could make test tubes, so we designed one from scratch and made it in response to a very urgent demand.

"We rang up the DHSC and we spoke to their purchasing managers very closely－he had no knowledge of those discussions. I know Matt Hancock, he's not a friend, he's an acquaintance. There's no link between the contracts we received and him."

The Financial Times noted that a recent National Audit Office, also known as the NAO, report revealed that suppliers put on a "VIP list"－through recommendations by ministers, members of Parliament or senior officials－were 10 times more likely to receive contracts.

The NAO report said a small family company of pest controllers, called Pestfix, received a deal worth 350 million pounds after being put on that VIP list due to an "error".

The public spending watchdog is expected to deliver further reports into the much-criticized test and trace program and into the government's vaccine preparations.