Covid PPE left gathering dust by Tory failings cost taxpayer £762million

Tory failure to check the viability of PPE for up to two years has cost the taxpayer £762million, the Mirror can reveal.

Boris Johnson's Government panic ordered mountains of protective kit as the pandemic took hold, which was piled up in shipping containers as storage facilities were overwhelmed.

But long delays on checking the surplus surgical gowns, masks and visors meant that warranties had expired by the time the faulty PPE was found. This means that taxpayers' cash cannot be recovered through the courts and must be written off.

The failure has been uncovered as part of a year-long probe by Covid counter-fraud commissioner Tom Hayhoe. Chancellor Rachel Reeves tasked him in December with trying to claw back public money lost to fraud and waste during the pandemic.

His first challenge was to review £8.7billion of Covid PPE that then had to be written off the government's books.

Department of Health accounts revealed in 2022 that £673 million worth of equipment was completely unusable, and £750 million was wasted items that were not used before their expiry date.

MPs were told that the Government planned to burn mountains of unusable gear. Nearly £2.6 billion was spent on “items not suitable for use in the NHS" but could be sold or given to charities.

The remaining stock plummeted in value because demand for PPE had dropped.

A Treasury source said: "The Chancellor has been clear that she wants this money - that belongs to the British people, back in our public services.

"Tom Hayhoe is gripping the carnival of waste that we saw under the Tories and has already uncovered millions of taxpayer pounds wasted on PPE that was left to gather dust.

"Unlike the Tories, Labour won’t let fraudsters who sought to profit off the back of a national emergency line their pockets."

The commissioner's final report will be published later in December, which will cover waste and fraud linked to PPE, the furlough scheme, bounce-back loans, business support grants and Rishi Sunak's Eat Out to Help Out.

His initial work on PPE waste was contained in an interim report sent to the Chancellor.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) is separately probing possible criminal offences committed in the PPE procurement system.

Mr Hayhoe is also believed to be looking at whether cash can be recouped from £674million in contracts that the Tories had written off.

The award of lucrative contracts during the pandemic attracted controversy.

PPE Medpro, a firm linked to peer Baroness Michelle Mone and her husband Doug Barowman, was awarded government contracts worth more than £200million through a so-called VIP lane that allowed MPs, officials and ministers to make referrals.

The Government and PPE Medpro are locked in a legal battle over a contract to supply gowns, with a High Court trial due to begin in June.

Mr Barrowman previously accused the Government of trying to "scapegoat" the couple for its own failings.

The Tory Government has always maintained that it was operating in a crisis, with global PPE shortages driving up prices for kit that was essential for frontline workers.

Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the Covid Inquiry in March: "I have been subject to enormous amounts of conspiracy theories about what went on here, when in fact what happened was so many people working as hard as they could to save lives, and they bought more PPE as a result. And therefore people are alive who would otherwise be dead."