Labour accuses Conservatives of spending £3.5 billion on 'dodgy' Covid contracts

Labour has accused Boris Johnson’s Government of showing “complete disregard” for working people by wasting £3.5 billion of taxpayers’ money on “dodgy” contracts.

New analysis of Tussell Government procurement data by the Labour Party suggests £3.5 billion worth of Covid contracts were awarded to Conservative-linked firms.

The figure is more than triple the original tally of £1 billion Labour revealed in October 2020.

Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner insisted the Tories have shown “complete disregard” for working people.

She said: “The Conservatives have shown complete disregard for working people by wasting taxpayers’ money on dodgy contracts. Whether it was useless PPE or the billions that went down the drain on Test and Trace, they’ve shown that they are out for themselves and can’t be trusted to stand up for working people.

“Even as the Government is hitting working families with an unfair tax hike and household bills are soaring, the Conservatives continue to give billions of pounds out to their friends and donors.

“The Government should have long since ended the emergency rules that gave ‘VIP access’ to public contracts and they now need to say how they will recover the public money that has been handed out to their cronies for unusable PPE or undelivered services.”

In her conference speech in Brighton last week, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said a Labour government would claw back “every penny” of the failed Covid contracts given to friends of the Tories.

She said she would set up a team to go through contracts worth millions, like those she said were given to friends of former health secretary Matt Hancock, that delivered equipment which did not work.

Ms Reeves told delegates in Brighton: “I say today, to those who have secured Covid contracts and have not delivered – I give you notice. We want our money back.

“We will set up a team to go through every line of every failed contract where value was not delivered, and claw back every penny of taxpayers’ money we possibly can. Because that money belongs in our police. It belongs in our schools and it belongs in our NHS.”