A bid from Baroness Michelle Mone and her husband to access documents and other evidence about personal protective equipment (PPE) deals in the pandemic has been rejected by the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.
The inquiry’s chairwoman, Baroness Heather Hallett, rejected an application from Lady Mone and Doug Barrowman to become so-called core participants as past the deadline and said she would have rejected it anyway as she did not accept they had a “direct or significant” role in the matters the inquiry is investigating.
The inquiry began four weeks of scrutiny of decisions to purchase PPE on Monday.
The Tory peer, 52, and Mr Barrowman, 59, have faced controversy over the “VIP lane” contracts granted to some suppliers during the coronavirus pandemic.
PPE Medpro, a consortium led by Mr Barrowman, was awarded government contracts worth more than £200 million to supply personal protective equipment after Lady Mone recommended it to ministers.
Lady Mone and Mr Barrowman applied to become core participants on February 27, 468 days after the deadline of November 17 2023.
This would have given them a special status to receive documents, suggest questions and get advance notice of the inquiry’s report.
“I do not accept that applicants have a direct or significant role in the matters to be investigated by the inquiry,” Lady Hallett said in her decision.
“Whilst Medpro was a significant supplier of PPE to the UK government, it was but one of a number of such suppliers and there are several other contracts that the inquiry is investigating.”
It comes after the inquiry decided that evidence about PPE Medpro will be heard in private to avoid prejudicing an ongoing police investigation into the company.
Lady Hallett concluded there would be a risk of prejudice to potential criminal proceedings if “sensitive evidence” is heard in public.
Bereaved families have criticised the inquiry, saying there are many other PPE companies who could be called to give evidence.
Naomi Fulop, from the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK group, said: “The inquiry’s inexplicable decision to protect these corporations from public scrutiny smacks of a potential whitewash and makes achieving real justice for the Covid-19 bereaved families less likely.”
But the Covid-19 inquiry argued that it does not need to hear evidence from companies about specific PPE orders.
A spokesperson for the UK Covid-19 Inquiry said: “The inquiry does not need evidence from individual companies about specific orders of PPE to investigate this issue thoroughly.
“Its focus is on how the government responded to suppliers’ offers. Our role is not to pursue criminal investigations into individuals or suppliers – that is a matter for law enforcement.”