We’d like a public inquiry into profiteering on PPE | Coronavirus

The PPE procurement scandal runs deep. The data now rising about Girl Mone must be met with a public inquiry (Revealed: Tory peer Michelle Mone secretly received £29m from ‘VIP lane’ PPE firm, 23 November. There are a number of questions that this raises:

First, why weren’t all PPE contracts awarded on a full-cost-plus-margin foundation? The profiteering percentages on all these offers are frankly mind-boggling. The place can anybody earn 30% margins on a easy procurement contract in the true world? You may’t, is the reply.

Second, why did the federal government use so many untested firms (PPE Medpro, Pestfix, Ayanda)? How might they carry out due diligence on any of the above firms talked about if that they had zero observe document? PPE Medpro didn’t even exist till 12 Could 2020.

Lastly, why did we not use skilled entities like Marks & Spencer or John Lewis to rearrange for PPE contracts? Whereas that they had no observe document within the medical world (just like the examples above), they not less than had skilled procurement groups and would have most likely organized the offers for a modest mounted share. Perhaps even at value, given the nationwide emergency. The federal government ought to launch all the knowledge, so a correct forensic accounting might be finished. Congratulations to the Guardian for persevering with to pursue this story.
Tim Fallowfield
London

On the NHS frontline within the Covid pandemic, I noticed fantastic examples of workers and volunteers working collectively for the better good. The contrasting greed and selfishness of Michelle Mone and her household (PPE Medpro: Company declines to say how it would repay millions if told to do so, 25 November), in benefiting from large income on substandard PPE tools, is staggering.

No quantity of slick lawyer communicate and underhand offshore accounting can defend them from their very own ethical chapter. They used a global emergency to feather their very own nests from the general public purse. Historical past ought to choose them harshly, because it has profiteers from earlier international tragedies.
Dr Jeremy Oliver
London

Shameful profiteering at a time of nationwide want (Gove under pressure to explain role in PPE deals for Mone-linked firm, 24 November) has occurred earlier than, however then motion was taken. In 1919, after the primary world struggle, the president of the board of commerce launched a profiteering invoice, saying: “all considering males should regard [profiteering] as a severe evil … To profiteer is to make unreasonably massive revenue … by the sale to 1’s fellow residents”. It should be time for related motion to be taken now on all concerned within the corrupt “VIP lane” and shady test-and-trace procurements throughout our nationwide Covid disaster.
Dr Tristram Wyatt
London

I can’t be the one one to have observed the juxtaposition of your editorial (The Guardian view on the pandemic’s educational impact: make good learning losses, 24 November) and Angela Rayner’s column (Lady Mone is accused and still the Tories won’t come clean about PPE. What are they hiding?, 24 November). The £9bn simply written off by the federal government on overpriced or ineffective PPE might have funded two-thirds of the sum really helpful by Sir Kevan Collins for the post-pandemic training bundle. There aren’t any phrases.
Dave Headey
Faringdon, Oxfordshire