The PPE Rich List: Covid firms [British] unmasked

[yankeedoodle]

Some people say things are bad in Britain right now.  Apparently, it's pretty good for some people.  Happy New Year to some. 

The PPE Rich List: Covid firms unmasked
In the panic during the first pandemic wave, hundreds of firms were swiftly given contracts to supply medical protective gear, but much of the equipment went unused. These British-based companies got the biggest deals:  pictures and details here  https://archive.vn/SkkaL

They are the three letters that the Tories cannot seem able to shake... PPE. Last week, the Conservative peer Baroness Mone announced that she was taking leave of absence from the House of Lords amid scrutiny over deals awarded to PPE Medpro. She denies wrongdoing.

Now The Sunday Times can reveal the scale of payments and unused PPE of the 20 privately owned British-based companies that received the biggest deals in the pandemic.

Our PPE Rich List shows these businesses — including PPE Medpro — received a total of £7.4 billion in contracts but also produced more than £1 billion in PPE placed in the "do not supply" lane as of June 2021, meaning the masks, gowns and gloves in question had not been sent to NHS doctors or patients for frontline use.

In total, more than 680 firms, including listed firms and those run by overseas businesses, received contracts to supply PPE to the UK government.

Information in the PPE Rich List is based on research from the government insights service Tussell, based on publicly available contract data, and official data obtained under freedom of information laws by organisations including Spotlight on Corruption and the Good Law Project.

Our list focuses on British-based privately owned companies because they give a better picture of personal wealth than companies listed on the stock market, which have higher levels of transparency and are owned by public shareholders. Some British-based firms on the list have ultimate owners based overseas or feed revenue to a listed company.

Information on profits, dividends and revenues are taken from most recently available accounts filed with Companies House.
In some cases ultimate owners are hard to determine. While transparency laws have improved in the past decade to oblige businesses to name a "person of significant control", it is often unclear which individuals own share capital. Determining payments is hampered in some businesses that have a number of subsidiaries and holding companies.

Figures for unused PPE are from Department of Health and Social Care estimates based on the number of units marked "do not supply" as of June 2021 and the estimated cost of the units. The latest figures were released under a freedom of information request made by Spotlight on Corruption, a charity.

These estimates cannot be directly compared with the price of contracts because the value of equipment can change at different points along the supply line.

Some figures are obtained from freedom of information requests supplied by the Good Law Project or from documents lodged at the High Court.

In September 2021, Lord Bethell, a health minister, responded to the crossbench peer Lord Alton's question about "faulty PPE" by disclosing that, as of June 10, 2021, there had been £1.9 billion items of stock placed in the "do not supply".

The health department has since clarified that items marked "do not supply" by June 2021 were not directed to the NHS for use by frontline workers and patients for reasons including, but not limited to: they were not "fit for use" (that is, they did not pass safety standards or did, but had passed their sell by date since being supplied); they had not yet passed regulatory approval; the NHS thought other items were more suitable; or supply chain factors such as stock rotation and modern slavery concerns.

The department will not say how much of this PPE has since been repurposed, recycled or incinerated, and how much remains in warehouses or containers. In evidence to the public accounts committee, it recently suggested the overall amount of "do not supply" PPE had at least doubled since the 1.9 billion items (valued of £2.8 billion) last summer. At least a billion items are classified "waste — not fit for any use".

The department has not broken down how many items belong in each category. It is not known how many items have since been used, recycled, repurposed, left in storage or incinerated.
We have also excluded other Covid contracts for test and trace or testing, including only companies supplying or transporting PPE.




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