Matt Hancock defends involvement in PPE bid from former Tory MP
The IndependentSign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Get our free View from Westminster email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Health secretary Matt Hancock has insisted it was “perfectly reasonable” for him to help a former Conservative MP win a PPE deal worth £180 million. I have said all along I can help but I need yours and support to help make this happen for the Govt.” The following day, Mr Hancock’s aide sent an email to the PPE team, copying in the health secretary: “Please see below from former MP Brooks Newmark. Asked on BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show whether it was appropriate for him to get personally involved in a approach for a government contract from a former colleague, Mr Hancock replied: “Yes, it was absolutely appropriate for people to get in contact with anybody at the Department for Health when the country desperately needed PPE, and I sent this contact straight on to the PPE team, and they looked at it. “I don’t have anything to do with the award of contracts.” Challenged over whether Mr Newmark got “special treatment” because of his proposal being presented to Lord Deighton by the health secretary’s office, Mr Hancock said: “No, I just pinged it on.” He did not respond to the question of how his office was in a position to say that the bid was “excellent” and needed looking at “urgently” if his involvement had simply been to pass the approach on.
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Even by Tory standards, Matt Hancock has reached a new low
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